page_title: Khammouane Province
section_title: Protected areas
hierarchical_section_title: Khammouane Province / Protected areas
caption_attribution_description: Saola Pseudoryx nghetinhensis vi:Thể loại:Sách đỏ Việt Nam
context_page_description: Khammouane Province is a province in the center of Laos. Its capital lies at Thakhek.
  Khammouane Province covers an area of 16,315 square kilometres and is mostly of forested mountainous terrain. Many streams flow through the province to join the Mekong River. The vast forests of the Nakai-Nam Theun Biodiversity Conservation Area are an important watershed that feed many Mekong tributaries as well as form the catchment area for Nam Theun 2, the largest hydropower project in Laos. The Xe Bang Fai River, Nam Hinboun River, and the Nam Theun are the main rivers of the province.
  Part of the aborted Thakhek-Tan Ap railway would have crossed the province to connect with the North-South Railway at Tân Ấp Railway Station, Quảng Bình Province, Vietnam through Mụ Giạ Pass.
context_section_description: The province's forest areas consists of three reserve areas. These are the Nakai-Nam Theun National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA), which covers an area of 352,200 ha of the Annamite mountains and the adjacent Nakai Plateau in the provinces of Khammouane and Bolikhamxay, the Hin Nam No National Biodiversity Conservation Area with an area of 86,229 ha, and the Phou Hin Poun National Biodiversity Conservation Area with an area of 150,000 ha. These forests have many natural caves.
  In 1996, Western scientists discovered a rodent in Khammouan representing a mammal family that had been previously known only from fossils. The Laotian rock rat or kha-nyou (Laonastes aenigmamus), also called the "rat-squirrel", was formally described as a new species in 2005. The species was first described in a 2005 article by Paulina Jenkins and coauthors, who considered the animal to be distinct from all living rodents. They placed it in a new family, Laonastidae. It is in the monotypic genus Laonastes.'
  Species of mammals, some discovered relatively recently, include the following (Robichaud 2005): saola, giant muntjac, Roosevelt's muntjac, Truong Son muntjac, Indochinese warty pig, Heude's pig, Annamite striped rabbit, Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus), Indochinese tiger, and Asian elephant.
caption: Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis) found in Laos
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