The Central Highlands is one of the two main upland minority areas in Vietnam and the country’s northwest region. This area, home to diverse ethnic minority groups, had borne the brunt of the Vietnam War, where some of the most intense fighting, bombing, and spraying of defoliants occurred. Years-long war efforts devastated the traditional way of life and the livelihoods of this region’s indigenous population across multiple spectrums.

After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Vietnam was eventually unified under Communist rule. There were hopes that peace would enable the highlanders, the Montagnards, to return to their mountain villages and resume their original lifestyle. But things did not turn out to be that way.