One of Kampot’s many limestone outcrops that are now under threat due to an unsustainable demand for cement.

Across the continent, a construction boom is driving record demand for a core constituent of cement – limestone – resulting in the utter destruction of unique and fragile ecosystems

By Per Liljas
6 Jul 2018

“It breaks my heart,” he says. “If they continue blowing up the hills at this rate, they will all soon be gone.”

The reason for the environmental destruction is the need for concrete, the essential ingredient of urban development.

In just a handful of years, the construction industry has grown to become Cambodia’s second largest, after manu­facturing. The capital city of Phnom Penh, once praised as the “Pearl of Asia”, now resembles one gigantic construc­tion site, and old colonial neighbourhoods built by the French are being overwhelmed by high-rise towers.

For botanists, the resulting demand for cement represents a crisis: Kampot’s little-explored limestone hills are teeming with plant species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world, and their extinction now looms even before a full inventory of their number has begun.

Full https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-mag ... ing-cliffs

Forests gone
Hills gone
wildlife gone
rivers and streets polluted with tons of plastic
raw sewerage pumped through beaches
lovely people

concrete is the second most consumed product per capita in the world after water.

I thought it was sand...for the concrete

Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote: ↑Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:57 am
One of Kampot’s many limestone outcrops that are now under threat due to an unsustainable demand for cement.

Across the continent, a construction boom is driving record demand for a core constituent of cement – limestone – resulting in the utter destruction of unique and fragile ecosystems

By Per Liljas
6 Jul 2018

“It breaks my heart,” he says. “If they continue blowing up the hills at this rate, they will all soon be gone.”

The reason for the environmental destruction is the need for concrete, the essential ingredient of urban development.

In just a handful of years, the construction industry has grown to become Cambodia’s second largest, after manu­facturing. The capital city of Phnom Penh, once praised as the “Pearl of Asia”, now resembles one gigantic construc­tion site, and old colonial neighbourhoods built by the French are being overwhelmed by high-rise towers.

For botanists, the resulting demand for cement represents a crisis: Kampot’s little-explored limestone hills are teeming with plant species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world, and their extinction now looms even before a full inventory of their number has begun.

Full https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-mag ... ing-cliffs

All that limestone has not gone, they just moved it to Chinaville and other places. If only God had had the sense to put a coat of paint on those mountains then they would not have had to be renovated.

At this rate in another fifty years the only natural resources left to abuse will be the country's inhabitants.

Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote:At this rate in another fifty years the only natural resources left to abuse will be the country's inhabitants.

I fear that with climate change and Mekong dams may also remove the inhabitants...

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Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote: ↑Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:53 am At this rate in another fifty years the only natural resources left to abuse will be the country's inhabitants.

Oh, come on now, you bleeding hearts.

Spare some heart-strings for the long suffering BongThom...

Have any of you taken the time to consider astronomical costs associated with maintaining this lifestyle?

Take the requisite Bentley for example, there's half a mill right off the bat. Not to mention the eye-watering cost of the periodic scheduled maintenance and up keep.

Toss in a leggy mistress or two with their needy extended families and, well, these thing don't pay for themselves you know!

...and then lets say she crashes the damn thing, well, hey!

Being able to drive around a third world country in a Bentley, with a straight face, is quite the feat I'm sure.

So let's relinquish a limestone outcropping or two for these bastions of communal spirit and brotherly love. So that they may maintain the lifestyle to which they've become accustom.

Walnut sized, bejeweled rings big enough to choke a horse and Cartier watches the diameter of a small goblet are mere trivialities we all can abide these gentlemen of leisure..

aren't they?

One positive is that low-flying private planes and helicopters will have less to worry about

How degrading is that , to cover your prized Bentley with cardboard. Makes me wonder what is used to cover his second prized possession.