- Members of an antipoaching unit in Vietnam’s Pu Mat National Park recently told Mongabay how technology and on-the-ground patrols are combining to reduce poaching pressure in the park.
- Supported by the NGO Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, the APU integrates tools such as SMART data aggregation software and remotely monitored “PoacherCams” to identify trafficking hotspots and guide patrols more strategically.
- Though technologies like AI are highly effective at aggregating data, the team notes these tools have limits in rugged tropical terrain with limited connectivity and ever-shifting conditions.
- Patrol members say they’ve observed signs of wildlife returning to places that were once heavily hunted.
Southeast Asia’s middle class has grown exponentially in recent decades, driving demand for exotic pets, meats and animal parts used for luxury goods and traditional medicines. In Vietnam, long a destination country for trafficked animal products, rising demand has motivated wildlife trafficking rings to expand their activities domestically as well as internationally, putting the country’s rich biodiversity under pressure from indiscriminate and widespread trap use.
As trafficking rings become more sophisticated and entrenched, conservation groups have also had to adapt, embracing new technologies and deepening their own networks to combat wildlife crime.
One group working to stay ahead of traffickers is Save Vietnam’s Wildlife (SVW), which has partnered with several national parks to implement antipoaching practices in Vietnam’s richest and most targeted ecosystems.
Pu Mat National Park traces the border of Vietnam and Laos, where its rich biodiversity and many endemic species suffer growing pressure from poaching activity. Since 2018, SVW has worked in partnership with the park and its rangers to support the recruitment, equipping and training of a dedicated antipoaching unit, or APU.
Since its inception, the APU has removed tens of thousands of snares, dismantled poaching camps, confiscated firearms, and detained more than 1,000 alleged violators. Its approach integrates tools such as the SMART data aggregation software and remotely monitored “PoacherCams” to identify trafficking hotspots and guide patrols more strategically. At the same time, outreach efforts with local communities aim to reduce both the supply of and demand for illegally sourced wildlife.
APU coordinator Huu Trung Nguyen, team head Van Nam Luong, and deputy head Trung Hau Luong describe in an interview with Mongabay how the initiative began, how monitoring technologies and emerging AI tools are reshaping forest protection, and the changes they’ve observed in wildlife and trafficking patterns on the ground.
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Mongabay: Tell me about why the antipoaching unit was formed, and how the collaboration between Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and Pu Mat National Park has taken shape.
Huu Trung Nguyen: Pu Mat National Park is one of the most important protected areas in Vietnam. The park contains a core zone of approximately 94,804 hectares [234,266 acres] and a buffer zone of about 86,000 hectares [212,500 acres], forming part of the Western Nghe An Biosphere Reserve along the Annamite mountain range on the border between Vietnam and Laos.
The Annamite Mountains are widely recognized as one of the most biologically important landscapes in Southeast Asia, hosting many endemic species that occur nowhere else on Earth.
Despite this extraordinary biodiversity, wildlife populations across the Annamite forests have experienced severe declines over the past decades. One of the biggest threats has been the widespread use of wire snares. These traps are inexpensive, easy to deploy, and extremely effective. Hunters may set hundreds or even thousands of snares across large areas of forest, capturing animals indiscriminately. At the same time, the number of forest rangers responsible for protecting Pu Mat National Park is limited. Around 70 rangers are responsible for safeguarding nearly 95,000 hectares of core forest, meaning that on average each ranger must patrol more than 1,300 hectares [3,200 acres] of rugged terrain.
Recognizing these challenges, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife partnered with Pu Mat National Park in 2018 to establish Vietnam’s first dedicated antipoaching unit. The goal was not only to strengthen patrol capacity but also to introduce a more integrated approach that combines field patrols, monitoring technologies, and cooperation with law enforcement agencies to reduce threats to forest resources and biodiversity, creating conditions that allow wildlife populations to recover and increase over time. The unit operates with around 10 members who work closely with park rangers and have developed a long-term conservation partnership with Pu Mat National Park.
Mongabay: What motivates your team, and what practices and technologies have helped them realize their aspirations?
Van Nam Luong: Most members of the antipoaching unit come from communities living around Pu Mat National Park, and we grew up near these forests. When we were younger, elders in our villages often spoke about a time when wildlife was far more abundant. Hearing those stories, and later seeing how quickly wildlife disappeared, made us realize how much the forest had changed. When we later learned about Save Vietnam’s Wildlife and its vision of reducing threats to forests and helping wildlife populations recover, we felt that this was a conservation goal closely connected to our own communities and landscapes. We were eager to join the antipoaching unit and be involved in protecting the forests we had grown up around.
Trung Hau Luong: After joining the team and beginning to work with SVW and park rangers, we were introduced to new approaches to forest protection. We had never used technologies such as GPS-enabled smartphones, camera monitoring systems, or digital patrol monitoring tools before. Through training and field experience, team members gradually learned how these tools could support more effective forest protection.
Technology plays an important role in helping us achieve our goals. During patrols, team members use smartphones equipped with the SMART mobile application to record patrol routes, wildlife observations, snares, and other signs of illegal activities directly in the forest. The phones record GPS tracks and allow patrol teams to attach photos and detailed notes to each observation. This information is later analyzed to identify patterns of illegal activities and guide future patrol planning. The SMART monitoring system is also used to develop SMART profiles that help track patterns related to hunters, wildlife traders, restaurants, and other actors connected to wildlife consumption around the park.
Our work is also guided by a set of operational principles known as the “Four No’s.” These principles include no accepting money or benefits from violators, no collusion with illegal hunters or wildlife traders, no consumption of confiscated wildlife products, and no hunting wildlife during patrol activities. These principles help maintain transparency and integrity in the field and build trust between the antipoaching unit, park authorities, and local communities.
Community outreach is another important part of the program. Awareness activities have been conducted with local communities, hunters and restaurant owners. In some cases, these discussions have encouraged individuals to voluntarily surrender hunting guns or stop hunting activities. For our team, success is measured not only by patrol statistics, but by whether threats to wildlife decline and whether the forest becomes safer for animals.
(L) Trung Hau Luong and (R) Van Nam Luong. Images courtesy of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife.
Mongabay: How do you feel the team’s work and outcomes have measured with the aspirations of the program?
Huu Trung Nguyen: Overall, we believe the program has made meaningful progress toward its original goals. The antipoaching unit was created to reduce hunting pressure, support ranger patrols, and test whether a specialized antipoaching model could work effectively in Vietnam. Over time, we have seen encouraging results.
Monitoring data collected through patrols indicates that the number of snares encountered in Pu Mat National Park has decreased significantly. For patrol teams working on the ground, this reduction is also visible during field patrols, where signs of intensive snaring activities are now encountered less frequently in many areas of the park.
The program has also received positive feedback from local park authorities and law enforcement agencies. In meetings with Pu Mat National Park management and commune police, the antipoaching unit has been recognized for its forest protection efforts and the strong commitment of its team members to working in challenging conditions.
Another important outcome is the growing use of SMART monitoring as a practical management tool. Patrol data is now regularly analyzed to help identify areas with higher risks of illegal activities, allowing patrol teams and ranger stations to plan their operations more strategically.
Overall, experiences from Pu Mat suggest that combining dedicated patrol teams, modern monitoring technologies, and close cooperation with park rangers can significantly improve forest protection efforts. These lessons are helping demonstrate how a more targeted and data-driven antipoaching approach can contribute to reducing threats to biodiversity in protected areas.
Mongabay: How has the use of SMART and PoacherCams changed your approach to forest protection?
Trung Hau Luong: Before SMART was introduced, patrol information in Pu Mat National Park was mainly recorded using written notes, which were later reported during internal ranger meetings. While this system helped record basic information, it was often difficult to organize, store and analyze the information over time. Patrol routes and locations of illegal activities were usually described in narrative form rather than mapped with precise coordinates, making it challenging to identify patterns across the landscape or to plan patrols based on clear evidence. Patrol planning therefore relied on the experience and judgment of individual rangers.
The introduction of SMART significantly changed this approach. With SMART Mobile installed on smartphones, patrol teams can now record field information directly during patrols. This information is stored in a central database and can be analyzed across months and years to identify hotspots of illegal hunting activities. Having a continuous stream of structured patrol data allows park managers and patrol teams to better understand how threats are distributed across the forest landscape. Patrol planning can therefore become more strategic, allowing ranger stations to focus efforts on areas where illegal activities are most likely to occur.
PoacherCams provide another layer of monitoring by detecting human activity in remote forest areas. Cameras are installed at strategic locations such as forest entry points, ridge crossings, or trails frequently used by hunters. Currently eight cameras operate in Pu Mat National Park. The cameras capture images of people entering the forest and help patrol teams better understand how people move through the forest and identify potential illegal activities.
One memorable case occurred after PoacherCams were installed along a trail frequently used by hunters entering Pu Mat National Park. One camera captured images of a man entering the forest carrying a hunting gun. After reviewing the images, our team shared the information with forest rangers and commune police. Authorities later approached the individual in his village and explained the legal consequences of illegal hunting. Following that discussion, the individual voluntarily surrendered his hunting gun.
Looking ahead, technologies such as artificial intelligence may further strengthen this monitoring system. AI tools could help automatically analyze large volumes of patrol and camera data, detect patterns of illegal activities, and provide early warnings to patrol teams. When combined with the field experience of rangers and local patrol teams, these technologies have the potential to make forest protection efforts more proactive, strategic and effective. Cases like this demonstrate how monitoring technologies can support both law enforcement and preventive engagement with local communities.
Mongabay: What compatibilities and incompatibilities have you observed between AI technology and conservation activities in Vietnamese forests?
Huu Trung Nguyen: Monitoring technologies such as camera systems and digital patrol tools allow us to detect illegal activities in remote areas and analyze patterns over time, turning field observations into usable information that can support better patrol planning and management decisions.
However, applying these technologies in tropical forest environments also brings practical challenges. The terrain in Pu Mat is rugged, humidity is very high, and mobile network coverage is limited in many areas. These conditions can affect how well monitoring equipment functions and how reliably data can be transmitted. To deal with this, patrol teams use waterproof devices and protective equipment in the field, and cameras are installed in locations where signals allow images to be transmitted.
Another challenge is related to how forest protection work has traditionally been organized. In many ranger stations, patrol performance has long been measured mainly by indicators such as the number of patrols conducted or the distance covered. While these indicators are useful, they do not always show how effective patrols are in detecting illegal activities. Introducing technology therefore often requires gradual changes in how patrols are planned, implemented and evaluated. For this reason, SVW has focused not only on introducing new technologies but also on supporting ranger teams to use them effectively. Antipoaching team members working alongside ranger stations provide hands-on support in using tools such as SMART and PoacherCams. They also work with ranger leaders to review patrol data, identify protection trends across the park and coordinate patrol strategies between ranger stations.
At the same time, it is important to recognize the limits of AI technologies. Most AI systems rely heavily on historical data, but conditions in the forest can change quickly due to shifting threats and human activities. For this reason, AI should be seen as a tool that supports human decision-making rather than its replacement. In practice, AI can help handle time-consuming tasks such as sorting large numbers of camera images or analyzing patrol data. This allows rangers and conservation teams to spend more time interpreting the information and making practical decisions in the field, where human experience and judgment remain essential.
Over time, these changes are helping shift forest protection from routine patrols toward more targeted operations that focus on areas where threats are most likely to occur. This approach allows ranger teams to use their limited time and resources more effectively.
Mongabay: What developments are required to make AI technology more compatible with your work?
Huu Trung Nguyen: Several technological improvements could significantly strengthen conservation work in the future. For example, AI systems that can automatically recognize human activity in camera images would help patrol teams detect potential threats more quickly. Acoustic monitoring technologies that can detect sounds such as gunshots or chainsaws could also provide early warnings of illegal activities. Improved infrared or thermal imaging systems would also be useful for detecting human movement at night, when many hunting activities take place.
In November 2025, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, together with the Vietnam Administration of Forestry under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the SMART Partnership and Ai2’s EarthRanger, co-hosted the Applied Conservation Technology Congress in Vietnam. The event brought together more than 460 participants, including rangers, conservation practitioners, engineers, researchers, government representatives, and conservation organizations. Participants shared practical experiences on how emerging technologies can support biodiversity protection and wildlife law enforcement. Many of the exchanges showed that conservation teams working in tropical forests often face similar challenges when applying new technologies in the field. One clear message from the discussions was that many conservation technologies still need to be adapted to tropical forest environments. Monitoring equipment must be able to withstand high humidity, heavy rainfall, and long deployment periods in remote areas where communication signals are often weak.
Following the event, Wildlife Protection Solutions donated several UOVision Glory 4G LTE camera traps for field testing. These cameras are currently being deployed on a trial basis in several national parks and protected areas to evaluate their performance under real forest conditions. If the results are positive, such technologies could become valuable tools for collecting field information and helping rangers detect illegal activities more effectively.
At the same time, the successful use of these technologies also depends on supportive policies and clear regulatory frameworks. Continued support from management authorities is important to ensure that new monitoring technologies can be applied effectively in conservation and law enforcement activities.
Finally, technology alone is not enough. Rangers and conservation teams also need the skills and experience to use these tools effectively. Through the antipoaching unit model, SVW provides hands-on training that aims to help ranger teams make better decisions in protecting forests and wildlife by combining modern technology with their field experience and ecological knowledge.
Mongabay: How has the forest changed since the inception of the APU?
Van Nam Luong: One of the most noticeable changes we have seen is a reduction in hunting pressure. In the past, it was common to encounter long lines of snares or temporary hunting camps during patrols. Today, those signs appear much less frequently in many areas.
We have also begun to see more encouraging signs of wildlife. During one patrol, for example, a team member discovered fresh footprints and a nest of wild pigs in an area that had previously been heavily affected by hunting pressure. Small moments like this remind us why the work matters.
Wildlife populations often take a long time to recover when hunting pressure remains high, so seeing these signs return relatively quickly is encouraging. It suggests that reduced snaring and improved forest protection may be helping wildlife populations rebound.
Patrol teams have also observed groups of otters along forest streams and recorded signs of pangolins during patrol activities.
Beyond these field observations, independent camera-trap surveys in the Pu Mat landscape have revealed a remarkable diversity of wildlife still present in the forest. Earlier this year, Fauna & Flora International released results from camera-trap monitoring in the area, documenting dozens of species including clouded leopards, Owston’s civets, leopard cats, yellow-throated martens, northern red muntjacs, silver pheasants, etc.
Taken together, these observations suggest that wildlife in the Annamite forests still has the capacity to recover when hunting pressure is reduced and forests are better protected.
Mongabay: How has animal trafficking changed since the APU’s inception?
Trung Hau Luong: Recently, hunters tend to operate more cautiously. Instead of long snare lines we more often find individual snares placed carefully and hidden in vegetation. Hunting camps are usually temporary rather than permanent, and hunters tend to move more frequently to avoid detection. Some hunters are also aware of monitoring technologies and may try to avoid routes where cameras are installed.
Wildlife trade around the park has also become less visible. In the past, wildlife consumption sometimes occurred openly in restaurants or local markets. Today these activities tend to be more discreet. To better understand these patterns, the antipoaching unit uses SMART monitoring to build profiles of individuals suspected of hunting as well as locations associated with wildlife trade. Although illegal hunting has not disappeared entirely, overall hunting pressure appears to have declined compared with earlier years.
Mongabay: What role does SVW aspire to play in the broader fight against wildlife trafficking?
Huu Trung Nguyen: Save Vietnam’s Wildlife aims to contribute to wildlife protection at several interconnected levels. One important principle that guides our work is that poaching is often the first step in the wildlife trafficking chain. If illegal hunting can be reduced in the forest, many wildlife trafficking cases can be prevented before animals ever enter trade networks.
At the field level, strengthening patrol capacity and improving the use of tools such as SMART and camera monitoring systems are important to detecting illegal hunting activities. We also work closely with park rangers and law enforcement agencies to support investigations related to wildlife crime and to share information collected through patrols and monitoring systems.
At the community level, SVW works with local communities, hunters and businesses around protected areas to reduce wildlife consumption and raise awareness about wildlife conservation. Education and outreach are a key part of this work. In April, SVW will officially launch a mobile nature center that will travel to schools, communities and public events across provinces and cities throughout Vietnam, providing interactive educational activities about wildlife conservation and the prevention of illegal wildlife trade.
At the national level, we collaborate with government agencies and conservation partners to share lessons learned from field implementation and promote effective conservation approaches and technologies. Experiences from the antipoaching unit can contribute to ongoing discussions on strengthening policy frameworks and enforcement mechanisms related to wildlife protection in Vietnam.
Ultimately, our goal is to reduce threats to forests and biodiversity so that wildlife populations in Vietnam’s protected landscapes have the opportunity to recover.
Van Nam Luong: For those of us working in the forest, the most encouraging moments are when we begin to see signs of wildlife returning to places that were once heavily hunted. Those moments remind us that sustained protection can make a real difference over time.
Banner image: Antipoaching officers and Forest rangers in Pu Mat. Image courtesy of Save Vietnam’s Wildlife.
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