In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses

by Guest Tue Mar 14, 2017 10:36 am

“Caves are fragile environments. They don’t regenerate very quickly, and once they’re broken, they’re broken.”

The world’s largest cave, the mammoth Hong Son Doong in Vietnam, is a relative babe-in-arms when it comes to natural history: The cavern was first discovered in 1991, then lost, then found again before it was first explored in 2009. But less than a decade later, environmentalists are scrambling to save the site from thousands of tourists and a development company set on thrusting a cable car into its depths.

Located in Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Son Doong stretches more than 5.5 miles underground, reaches heights of 650 feet and is home to its own jungle, ecosystem and river. Just one tour company has a concession to venture into the cave, and only a few hundred people are allowed inside the fragile environment every year. But that could soon change.

HuffPost RYOT spoke with local activists, cavers and the spelunkers who first explored Son Doong about the local government’s secretive plans that may allow developers to build a massive cable car project that’d bring more than 1,000 people to the cave each day.

Such threats are not new.
In 2014, a group of local activists helped stave off a proposal to build a $212 million, 6.5 mile-long cable car throughout Phong Nha-Ke Bang park that would traverse parts of Son Doong. The announcement drew widespread condemnation despite assurances from the cable car company, Sun Group, that it would be an environmentally friendly way to view the park that’d bring “thousands of jobs for the poor local people.”
Any plans at Son Doong would likely echo another project, completed by another company last year, at the country’s Mount Fansipan, one of the tallest peaks in the region. The site is now home to a cable car that cut a journey that used to take three days on foot down to 20 minutes. The system can now bring 2,000 people to the summit every hour, and, like the country’s iconic Ha Long Bay, has become a hive of tourist activity.

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses 58c682631d00001d107ce0a4

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses 58c682631d00001d107ce0a4

JASON SPETH/HUFFPOST RYOT
Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, the largest in the world, could hold a 40-story skyscraper inside. The pristine ecosystem has its own river and jungle.

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses 58c75daf2c00002000fee338

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses 58c75daf2c00002000fee338

JASON SPETH/HUFFPOST RYOT
An underground river helped carve out the Son Doong cave over millions of years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/son-doong-cave-vietnam-cable-car-plan_us_58c67dc2e4b054a0ea6ba11f?ir=UK&utm_hp_ref=uk

by 'Wolfie Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:46 pm

We can add this cave system to the list of those 'Wonders of the World' -- both natural and man-made -- that are under threat from "being loved to death" by commercialisation, over-exploitation, pollution, general lack of care, and/or too much tourism... For example :

Mount Everest
The Great Barrier Reef
The Grand Canyon
The Pyramids in Egypt
The Brazilian rainforests
The Sphinx
Stonehenge
Ayers Rock/Uluru

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses

In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses

“Caves are fragile environments. They don’t regenerate very quickly, and once they’re broken, they’re broken.”

Re: In Vietnam, A Rush To Save The World’s Largest Cave From The Masses