SUMMARY

Đắk Nông UNESCO Global Geopark - outstanding heritage
values and the itinerary leading to the noble title

La Thế Phúc, Lương Thị Tuất, Phạm Hồng Thái, Phạm Đình Sắc,

Bùi Văn Thơm, Lê Thị Minh Lý, Nguyễn Khắc Sử, Nguyễn Lân Cường, Vũ Tiến Đức; Lê Xuân Hưng,
Trần Quốc Huy, Phạm Ngọc Danh, Nguyễn Thanh Tùng, Nguyễn Trung Minh

The northern half of Dak Nong province is an area, where dozens of geological heritage sites of national, regional and international value are highly concentrated, representing 9/10 geological heritage types, as classified by UNESCO and MONRE, which include: Type A - Paleontology; Type B - Geomorphology; Type C - Paleon-environment; Type D - Rock; Type E - Stratigraphy; Type F - Mineralogy, minerals; Type I - Tectonics; Type K - Universe, and Type L - Continent, ocean. In addition, this area is known for its nature reserves and national parks with great biodiversity, and is also a place where both tangible and intangible cultural heritage series are kept. This helps make the area a natural and cultural heritage complex of globally outstanding value. The conceptual idea of investigating the geological heritage and setting up a geopark as well for this area, as initiated by geological scientists since 2006, has been realized. As a result, the title “Dak Nong UNESCO Global Geopark’ was recognized by UNESCO on July 7th 2020. This noble given title is a recognition of scientific achievement and of sterling effort made by various scientists of multidisciplinary themes, managerial levels of various concerned sectors through the years, as well as the determined participation of and support from the political system, local governments and local residents/communities. This article provides an overview of the 14-year process of establishing the geopark, the outstanding heritage values achieved from decisive scientific works that have made the noble given title ""DakNong UNESCO Global Geopark'.

Keywords: geopark, geological heritage/geoheritage, biodiversity, cultural heritage, Đắk Nông.