The goals of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation's survey work include providing baseline biodiversity data, identifying conservation threats and opportunities, and placing Vietnamese conservation strategies in a regional, national and transnational scientific context.

Research sites for the 1998-2000 biotic inventory and survey collections were selected to:

• Maximize contributions to the current knowledge of species diversity, distribution and biogeographic hypotheses by focusing on areas with potentially high levels of biodiversity and a paucity of previous systematic survey and inventory work.
• Address the conservation needs of Vietnam's endangered forest ecosystems by inventorying intact ecosystems which are currently unprotected, under-surveyed and underrepresented in the existing protected areas network, and which have the potential to become part of an effective reserve system.

For background on research site selection and maps of the work sites and the current protected areas in each region, please visit the individual Research Site pages.

Research sites visited by the biotic inventory teams in the Northern Truong Son Mountains (red), Ngoc Linh Mountain range (green), and Ha Giang Privince (blue).