image

In this photo taken July 1, 2012, white smoke billows from a chimney of the Holcim Vietnam cement company plant near the Moso mountains in Hon 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. 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)