A success called Longhouse

I am K’Yeu, 40 years old, and of Ma ethinic minority. I am living with my wife and four chidldren in Village 4, Ta Lai Commune, Tan Phu district, Dong Nai province. Like other Ma and S’tieng neighbours, my family income bases on crops and farming which just help to meet the most daily basic needs of ours …

Cat Tien National Park rests in a transition zone nestled between the plateaus of southern Vietnam, home to impressive forest ecosystems, and the Mekong Delta below. Therefore the area is rich with streams of diverse animals and plants. But the challenge of protecting the park and its biodiversity is not a simple one, with many communities living around and inside the park. These often extremely poor and rely on natural resources to survive.

With the support of the DANIDA, WWF-Denmark and WWF-Vietnam have been working together on a project to help build community-based ecotourism in and around Cat Tien National park. The goal of the project is that Ecotourism in and around Protected Areas (PAs) directly benefits the livelihoods of local communities and the nature conservation.”

During the project, WWF-Vietnam has been working with the Park’s Ecotourism Centre to support the staff in raising capacity on ecotourism skills and planning.

One of the outstanding achivement of the project is the tourism Guest House of Talai (alias Ta Lai Long house).

Mr. K’Yeu remembered “When WWF and commune authorities came to tell about the project. We were both happy and worried. Happy because we will be able to improve our livelihood but we knew nothing about tourism…”

To develop the Ta Lai longhouse, a community based tourism board was created. This community-led approach ensured buy-in firstly at the community level, which then flowed on to all the relevant stakeholders. The members of the board were responsible for leading the decision making process.

Then a feature of the long house process was the selection of its position. The location was decided by local people with the consultation of both professionals and travel companies so that it could meet the needs of tourists and be most convenient for locals. Community elders were consulted on the design and construction of the longhouse to ensure it remained faithful to tradition.

After six harworking months, Ta Lai Longhouse was completed covering 152m2 and purely constructed by environmentally friendly materials such as bamboo, wood, palm leaves and rattans. There is a 100m2 large yard in front of the Long House, shadowed by trees. A side of the house looked down the poetic and quiet Vam Ho dam. In the meantime, local people were afforeded to different training courses to learn tourism such as cooking, hosting, presentation skills, etc. WWWF alslo helped to supported them to conserve and enhance their traditional customs such as music, dance, food, knowing that culture plays a vital role in community-based tourism devlelopment. Late in 2011, the Longhouse received first guests: teachers and pupils of British International High School from HoChiMinh city.

A contract between VietAdventure (an professional adventurous tourism operator from HoChiMinh city and the Ta Lai community-based tourism cooperative group, as a result and start of a long term cooperation between the community and private sector. Then in the future the local community will do business on their own when their capacity is fully built. It is for the vision that the local people can contribute to sustainablity of the overall development of the local community in Ta Lai.

The Ma and the S’tieng are indigenous inhabitants of Cat Tien National Park who formerly lived in traditional bamboo longhouses inside the forest and survived by collecting forest products and performing slash and burn agriculture. In 1977, they were resettled in Village 4, Talai commune, where there are now three ethnic minorities living together, namely Ma, S’tieng and Tay people