Although Vietnam is part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, its insect fauna is still extremely poorly documented, with an estimate of only 10–20% of the Vietnamese insect species being described so far. The situation is similar or even worse in neighboring countries including Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. This lack of taxonomic knowledge and expertise was identified as the “taxonomic impediment” during the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. This strongly hampers the work and decisions of conservationists, ecologists, biodiversity scientists, lawmakers, and many others who rely heavily on taxonomic information to manage, conserve, use, and share our biodiversity.

In general, the proposed GTI project aims to contribute to filling this gap by (i) providing taxonomic expertise in the study of several insect groups, (ii) providing training to Vietnamese colleagues in taxonomy both in the lab and in the field, (iii) providing species lists to the authorities of protected areas to help in their management, (iv) organizing symposia on taxonomy and insect diversity in Vietnam and (v) providing communication material on Vietnamese insect diversity.

More specifically, the project aims to develop knowledge and study Vietnamese entomofauna via two main axes:

(1) Collection, identification and inventory of several target groups (e.g., Hemiptera Cicadidae, Fulgoridae, Eurybrachidae, Heteroptera Pentatomidae, Phasmida, Lepidoptera Saturniidae and Coleoptera Rutelinae, Sericinae and Lucanidae) in:

• • Cuc Phuong National Park, Tam Dao National Park, Melinh Biodiversity Station and Pia Oac Nature Reserve (2010 project);
  • Da Krong Nature Reserve and Bach Ma National Park, while two other national parks in Northern Vietnam (Cuc Phuong and Tam Dao) will be re-sampled due to their high biodiversity potential detected in 2010 (2011 project);
  • Con Dao National Park, Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve and Cat Tien National Park (2012 project);
  • Hoang Lien National Park, Tay Yen Tu Nature Reserve and Cat Ba National Park (2013 project);
  • Bidoup-Nui Ba, Phuoc Binh and Nui Chua National parks (2014 project);
  • Ba Vi National Park, Ba Be National Park, Cham Chu Nature Reserve and Me Linh Biodiversity Station, representing poorly known areas of high biodiversity potential and of high interest for understanding zoogeography and estimate species richness in one of our focus groups: stick insects (2015 project);
  • Muong Nhe, Copia and Ngo Luong Nature Reserves and Cuc Phuong National Park, representing very poorly known areas of high biodiversity potential and of high interest for understanding zoogeography and estimate species richness in two of our focus groups: stick insects and cicadas (2016 project);
  • Northern (Pu Mat National Park and Ke Go Nature Reserve) and central (Ba Na-Nui Chua Nature Reserve) parts of Central Vietnam, a very poorly documented area of high interest for understanding zoogeography and estimate species richness in two of our focus groups: stick insects and cicadas (2017 project);
  • Central Vietnam, on the Pleiku Plateau, at three locations: Kon Ka Kinh National Park, Kon Chu Rang Nature Reserve and Chu Mom Ray National Park (very poorly documented area in terms of entomological fauna and of high interest for research on stick insects and cicadas) (2018 project);
  • Dray Sap, Ta Dung National Park, Chu Yang Sin National Park and Kon Plong Protected Forest (Central Vietnam) (2019 project);

Vietnamese members of the staff will receive training in some field collecting techniques and identification routines. All participants will be trained to general entomological collecting and to specific collecting of the groups studied by the other members of the staff in order to reach the best team-efficiency during fieldwork.

(2) Improvement of the entomological collections, of the collections management and of the study of the material preserved at the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR) and the Vietnam National Museum of Nature (VNMN). Environmental conditions, including insect pest management, as well as structural and staff organization, will be evaluated. If necessary, pragmatic solutions will be proposed, such as the purchase and installation of a great capacity freezer to allow preservation of unmounted material and disinfection of parasitized material (IEBR, 2011). One of the challenges will also be to curate and study the great amount of unmounted material which for sure contains a high number of new species. This issue will be evaluated and efforts will be made to rethink organization and working methods if necessary.

The objective is to develop in IEBR and VNMN a modern reference collection of national, regional and international importance, using the best international standards, and to provide material allowing state-of-the-art mounting and study of the specimens.