The snub nosed Tonkin monkey, once thought to be extinct, is to get a boost with the approval of a 2000 hectare reserve in Ha Giang.

This will be the first of its type in Vietnam and will be home to around 90 of the monkeys – the biggest community of the breed currently in Vietnam. There are only around 250 monkeys left in the world.

The primates remain rated as “extremely endangered” in the world and in Vietnam and up until the early 1990s were thought to have died out altogether before they were rediscovered in the mountainous provinces of Tuyen Quang and later in 2002 in Ha Giang.

Hoang Van Tue, chief of the sanctuary management board, says they monkeys iare developing well and he strongly believes in that a successful preservation is possible.

There are four species of snub-nosed monkeys in the world, including three in China and one in Vietnam.

ML