A Race to Document Rare Plants Before These Cliffs Are Ground to Dust<br />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<br />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<br />Over four days in January, armed with rice sacks and pruning shears, Dr. McDonald<br />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.<br />Cambodia said that They are threatened, as they are elsewhere, but the difference is<br />that there is almost nothing known about the biodiversity of the hills<br />Kampot (K) Cement, a joint venture between the well-connected local company Khaou Chuly Group<br />and the Thai cement manufacturer Siam Cement, has claim to large karsts in the area.<br />A small group of scientists are now racing to document rare plant life in these limestone karsts before local companies quarry them to dust<br />and grind them up for production of the cement that is fueling this country’s building boom.<br />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<br />that tries to preserve the karsts, urging local residents to stop stripping them and chopping off rocks to sell.
