Mekong’s natural habitat & Vietnamese delta

Downstream from Phnom Penh towards the sea, most of the Mekong’s natural habitat has long gone. The Vietnamese delta, once known as the Plain of Reeds is now a plain of irrigated rice. A vast, monotonous, monoculture, with the only natural habitat confined to tiny, shrinking islands.The last significant remnant of the true delta is Boeng Prek Lapou, 10,000ha in southern Cambodia’s Takeo Province. Seasonally inundated grassland forming vast mats Vietnam has long and what the whole delta would have once looked like.
Boeung Prek Lapou was only discovered by government biologists in 2000 due to the presence of Sarus Cranes. An emblem of the Mekong Delta, they were considered restricted to two small remaining areas in Vietnam. Boeung Prek Lapou was rapidly found to be the most important site for Sarus Cranes anywhere in the delta.Yet at the same time it was threatened by an agricultural development project that would convert the last remaining natural wetland into irrigated rice. Fortunately this was stopped and the area is now being proposed by the government for protection as a Crane Conservation Area.