DONG NAI — A nha dai or communal house of ethnic groups living at the Cat Tien National Park has opened its doors to welcome tourists visiting the park in Ta Lai Commune, Tan Phu District in the southern province of Dong Nai.

The house, which took five months to complete in a project funded by the World Wide Fund (WWF), is the first community-based tourism guest house in the region.

Located near the forest's edge at Cat Tien National Park, the 125sq.m communal house is made from environmentally-friendly materials such as bamboo, wood, palm leaves and rattan.

The house is the result of the hard work of ethnic people from the Ma, S'tieng and Tay groups, who directly participated in the designing, planning and building of the house.

The house is a part of the community-based tourism model, which is one of the key activities of the Eco-tourism Development in Viet Nam's National Reserves project implemented by WWF in collaboration with the Cat Tien National Park since 2008.

According to chairman of Ta Lai Commune Dang Vu Hiep, the house offers not only cultural meaning but also economic value to the ethnic groups living in the region.

"Community-based tourism will create stable livelihoods for local people by helping to reduce pressure on natural resources, raise people's awareness on environmental protection and promote the cultural characters of the ethnic community," he said. — VNS