Cranes at Tram Chim

Tram Chim or ‘Bird Swamp’ is a marshy area within Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta.
Sarus cranes, enchanting, bugling, dancing birds, were a common sight at Tram Chim before the Indochina Wars. By the end of the American War in Viet Nam they had disappeared. Decades of conflict and systematic ecocide had left their wetland dry and barren.

Now Tram Chim National Reserve stands as a shining example of habitat
restoration. It contains the first tropical wetland to have been brought back to life – a seemingly impossible feat achieved during a time of post-war duress – and again it contains cranes.

Cranes inspired this success. Memories of previous hostilities were erased while
local and foreign expertise combined and an innovative wetland management plan was created that accommodated the needs of humans and wildlife.

Eastern sarus cranes are not yet nesting at Tram Chim as they once did, but each year hundreds fly in from Cambodia to feed in receding floodwaters during the dry season. The cranes have become the focal point of ongoing collaborative conservation projects involving Viet Nam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. In 1989 one thousand cranes were counted at Tram Chim – the number that symbolizes eternal life.

— Kate Collie, 1995

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