Nguyen Thanh Luan
- Project name: Troubling tourism; conserving Vietnam's most threatened amphibian
- Project site: Hoang Lien National Park, Vietnam
- EDGE species: Botsford’s leaf-litter frog Leptobrachella botsfordi
- Active: 2018 - ongoing
Biography
Luan has worked for the Asian Turtle Program since 2012. His work focuses on turtle research and the conservation of freshwater turtles in Vietnam. He is currently working on his Masters thesis on the amphibian fauna of a nature reserve in central Vietnam.
Luan sees the EDGE Fellowship as a way to increase his skills and help him to develop the necessary knowledge to support his current work as well as future projects. He also hopes that through the Fellowship he can develop better and more standardised techniques for collecting data on amphibians and reptiles in Vietnam.
EDGE Project
Luan’s project aims to increase the knowledge and skills of conservationists in Vietnam and to improve our understanding of the ecology of the Botsford’s leaf-litter frog. His objectives are to:
- Determine the distributional range, ecology and biology of the Botsford’s leaf-litter frog.
- Assess the prevalence of chytrid infections in the Botsford leaf-litter frog and other sympatric and highly-threatened species on Mount Fansipan.
- Restore key breeding habitat for the species.
- Raise awareness amongst local tour operators and guides/porters of the negative impacts of tourism on the frogs habitat, with the aim of reducing litter and degree of human impact on sensitive sites in the park.
