Nature: 50 years after the US army sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam, the wildlife is fighting back

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Dawn. Smokin’ jungle either side of the Ho Chi Minh Highway: deep thick forest like giant broccoli, standing proud and high on slopes of dizzying steepness. A sweet coolness in the air that won’t last. And then the singing began: a joyous lamentation that filled the air above the trees, ringing out from one valley to the next.

Southern white-cheeked gibbons. Classified as endangered. They sound like the Clangers with more feeling: long, heartbreaking, ululating phrases that form the national anthem of the family that does the singing. It’s about family, territory, life, and the future. This is our home. Let’s keep it that way. It was a sentiment I encountered again and again in Vietnam.