A Race to Document Rare Plants Before These Cliffs Are Ground to Dust
PHNOM TOTUNG KAMPOT CEMENT CO. 5 Miles CHIP MONG INSEE CEMENT CO. Krong Kampot PHNOM DOMREI CAMBODIA PHNOM KAMPONG TRACH Kampong Trach CAMBODIA VIETNAM Phnom Penh
DETAIL Gulf of Thailand PHNOM TOTUNG 5 Miles KAMPOT CEMENT CO. PHNOM DOMREI PHNOM KAMPONG TRACH Kampong Trach CAMBODIA VIETNAM Gulf of Thailand FEB. 13, 2017
Over four days in January, armed with rice sacks and pruning shears, Dr. McDonald
and several colleagues and students pored over two linked karsts, Phnom Kampong Trach and Phnom Domrei, climbing atop their jagged surfaces and passing all the way through them in a network of caves.
Cambodia said that They are threatened, as they are elsewhere, but the difference is
that there is almost nothing known about the biodiversity of the hills
Kampot (K) Cement, a joint venture between the well-connected local company Khaou Chuly Group
and the Thai cement manufacturer Siam Cement, has claim to large karsts in the area.
A small group of scientists are now racing to document rare plant life in these limestone karsts before local companies quarry them to dust
and grind them up for production of the cement that is fueling this country’s building boom.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Mr. Ken Sam An spent years working for a limestone quarrying company, but now he serves on a local committee
that tries to preserve the karsts, urging local residents to stop stripping them and chopping off rocks to sell.
