26 Arnoldia 78/3 « February 2021 
total known popula- 
tion at approximately 
four hundred individual 
trees. This event was 
deeply upsetting, espe- 
cially because, as I later 
learned, the individuals 
responsible were aware 
of the conservation 
importance. The Laos 
government took the 
event seriously and not 
only arrested the local 
Lao poachers but aggres- 
sively pursued the com- 
pany in Vietnam that 
had hired them. Fortu- 
nately, the neighboring 
communities protected 
the mother tree from the 
poachers. Another factor 
\ 
pS, iu vie ie eDeoy j 
The author (right) plants a Glyptostrobus seedling on National Tree Planting Day in May 
2019. More than one hundred Laos government officials participated in the event, includ- 
ing Axay Vongkhamsao, head of the environmental division at NTPC (left); Khamthone 
Vongphachanh (center); and Thong Eth Phayvanh (second from right), the deputy general 
director of the Department of Forestry and director of the Watershed Management and 
that might have contrib- 
uted to its protection 
is that the oldest trees are often hollow at the 
base, much like coast redwoods in California. 
The younger trees have solid trunks that are 
more desirable to poachers. This event shifted 
our project’s goals and objectives to focus on 
community-based restoration program and to 
identify and protect other unknown stands in 
the region. 
Each November, between 2017 and 2020, we 
collected seeds from the remaining stands. In 
the first two years, we propagated two thou- 
sand seedlings; however, many of these did not 
survive. We have learned a lot about propaga- 
tion from these trials, and our team is actively 
developing improved propagation and planting 
techniques to restore stands of the mai hing 
sam in strategic areas of the watershed. We are 
excited to collaborate with colleagues in Viet- 
nam and China to restore populations there as 
well. The urgency is clear: after the poaching 
occurred, the government intervened before the 
logs were removed from the forest. Some of the 
fallen trees were more than a thousand years 
old, and now those trunks remain as warnings 
on the forest floor. With these threats in mind, 
our work continues, sustained by the promise 
of the small seedlings. 
Protection Authority. 
Endnotes: 
1 To learn more about recently documented mammal 
species in the Annamite Mountains: Dawson, M.R., 
Marivaux, L., Li, C., Beard, K.C., and Metais, G. 
2006. Laonastes and the “lazarus effect” in recent 
mammals. Science, 311(5766): 1456-1458. doi:10.1126/ 
science.1124187; MacKinnon, J. 2000. New mammals 
in the 21st century? Annals of the Missouri Botanical 
Garden, 87(1): 63-66. doi:10.2307/2666208 
2 Recent botanical discoveries in the Annamite 
Mountains include many new orchid species. 
Also, Brendan Buckley, from Columbia University, 
documented remarkable old-growth specimens of 
another cypress family species, Fokienia hodginsii, 
growing in Vietnam’s Bidoup Nui Ba National 
Park. The oldest specimens he found are more than 
twelve hundred years old, and the tree-ring data have 
supported Brendan’s research on long-term climate 
change in the region, including primary evidence for 
the fall of the Angkor civilization. Sano, M., Buckley, 
B. M. and Sweda, T. 2009. Tree-ring based hydroclimate 
reconstruction over northern Vietnam from Fokienia 
hodginsii: eighteenth century mega-drought and 
tropical Pacific influence. Climate Dynamics, 33: 
331-340. doi.org/10.1007/s00382-008-0454-y 
3 Robichaud, W.G., Marsh, C.W., Southammakoth, 
S., and Khounthikoummane, S. 2001. Review of 
the National Protected Area System of Lao PDR. 
Vientiane, Lao PDR: Lao-Swedish Forestry Programme, 
Department of Forestry and IUCN; Scudder, T. 
2020. A retrospective analysis of Laos’s Nam Theun 
GRETCHEN C. COFFMAN 
