Vietnam’s vegetation is lush and diverse. Forests shelter 12,000 species of plants, 2,300 of them are used for food, medicine, fodder and other kinds of users, and 5,000 species are still unidentified. Wildlife is extremely rich with thousands of invertebrate species, 800 bird species, 180 reptiles, 80 amphibians, and it goes on and on. Of the 275 species of mammals listed, many are endangered and protected: elephants, rhinos, tigers, leopards, black bears, honey bears, single-colo gibbons, macaques, rhesus monkeys, etc. The country has 30 national parks and nearly 60 nature reserves. The main parks in the north are in Cat BA, Ba Be, Bai Tu Long and Cuc Phuong. In the center, it’s in Bach Ma and to the south, Cat Tien and Yok Don. To avoid an ecological and hydrological disaster, the government has saved tens of thousands of kilometers of forest to create more national parks and reserves as well as ecotourism areas.