One reason is FPD officers are only poorly trained. When I visited a nearby area in the same year, I was struck by the limited resources for FPD staff, including the lack of training materials for new officers. The lower photo was printed, along with a story of the event, in the Communist Party Lao Dong Newspaper on 5 June 1997. These photos are of a young hunter at a river crossing in a Reserve in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Monitor lizards are a nutritious food.
In some countries, this species is bred in captivity for the market. However, taking monitors from forest Reserves, usually depletes wild populations. The photographer, Mr Vu Ngoc Thanh says that, as a result of the survey on which this animal was seen, this forest will become a new reserve.