THREATENED VIETNAM CAVE BUGS DRAW LITTLE SYMPATHY

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_VIETNAM_CAVE_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-09-12-04-43-41



n this photo taken July 1, 2012, white smoke billows from a chimney of the Holcim cementing plant near the Moso mountains in Hong Chong, southern Vietnam. Hundreds of species live in the limestone caves of Hon Chong, and many of them are found nowhere else on Earth. Yet their habitat is being blown apart, chunk by chunk, in the name of making cement. One reason, biologists lament, is that these are creatures no one would want to hug, and many would want to stomp. Spiders. Mites. Millipedes. Holcim Vietnam - a joint venture of the Switzerland-based company Holcim and a state-owned Vietnamese construction company - began quarrying 200 hectares (490 acres) of Hon Chong limestone in 1997. (AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen)

HON CHONG, Vietnam (AP) -- Hundreds of species live in the limestone caves of Hon Chong in southern Vietnam, and many of them are found nowhere else on Earth. Yet their habitat is being blown apart, chunk by chunk, in the name of making cement.

One reason, biologists lament, is that these are creatures no one would want to hug, and many would want to stomp.

Spiders. Mites. Millipedes.

People who have been trying to save them from extinction for more than 15 years have found few allies in government, industry or among local residents.

[Nihil]

1. Don't know about "Good Intentions" ...

... but I'd say that the Road to Hell is paved with bitterly sad quotes:

> Limestone is a key ingredient in cement, the second-most consumed substance on Earth after water

> "How many species is a company prepared to eliminate from a planet we are supposed to be managing and sustaining?"

> Because limestone hills have rugged terrain and have largely been spared from agricultural development,
> their interior caves are now "islands" of tropical biodiversity, and most of the organisms living inside those
> caves are unknown to science.

> One reason, biologists lament, is that these are creatures no one would want to hug, and many would
> want to stomp.

I hope that some of the technophilic hyperoptimists remember the above phrase in their dreams of
encountering alien species.