Lawmakers in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak have approved a policy to protect elephants. Under the policy, the provincial government will spend US$2.85 million until 2015 to offer free healthcare services to the animals each year.
All of the fees for medical examinations and medicine will be paid by the government.
Elephant owners have to pay at least half of the fees for medicine when health check-ups are required. The local government would pay the rest.
During the 1980s, the province had 550 wild elephants, but now the figure was estimated to go down to between 80 to 110 in the Dak Lak forest, the main area for elephants in Viet Nam.
Since 2009, 14 wild elephants have been found dead for many reasons. The number of tamed elephants has also fallen sharply, from more than 500 in 1980 to 50.
Protecting elephants has become a challenging issue in the Central Highlands.
Three years ago, Flora & Fauna International (FFI) warned that 150 elephants who were living at the time were in danger of becoming extinct.
According to news website VietNamNet, in 2009, representatives from FFI built an elephant training centre in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak.
At that time, they were optimistic about the project's feasibility, believing it would contribute to the conservation of wildlife.
However, in September this year, Mark McDonald, a conservationist, said that groups of conservationists had little hope that their efforts would be rewarded.
With limited funds from sponsors and the small scale of the centre, the efforts to stop poaching were futile.
Forest rangers are now worried that the species might die out in Viet Nam if the male elephants die.
The website quoted the director of the Dak Lak Province National Park as saying that elephant poaching had been developing rapidly. Six male elephants have been killed this year.
Just last month, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development began developing a plan on protecting elephants in the provinces of Dak Lak, Nghe An and Dong Nai.
The main point of the plan is that the State would provide financial support to local residents, so that they could keep and develop elephants. Under the plan, electronic-tracking chips would be attached to every elephant so they could be monitored. In addition, fences would be installed to protect elephants in conservation areas.