Caving in SE Asia: Quarrying of Bukit Sagu & Bukit Tenggek, Pahang

13 August 2014

Quarrying of Bukit Sagu & Bukit Tenggek, Pahang

Bukit Sagu in Pahang is being quarried by Pahang Cement / YTL. The neighbouring Bukit Tenggek is also being quarried. These 2 hills are among a group of 4 limestone hills located west of Kuantan, the others being Bukit Charas and Bukit Panching - the latter has been totally removed by quarrying. This is a GE image of the 4 hills in 2003, from south to north = Panching, Charas, Sagu, Tenggek -

Pahang Cement was established in 1995 as a 50:50 joint venture between the State Government of Pahang Darul Makmur and YTL Cement. The purpose of the joint venture was to build and operate the proposed integrated cement plant to be located in Bukit Sagu, Kuantan. The plant, the first of its kind in the Eastern Corridor, became operational in May 1998. YTL Cement acquired the remaining 50% of Pahang Cement in 2003. Pahang Cement Sdn Bhd (Pahang Cement) operates a state-of-the-art integrated cement plant in Bukit Sagu with the capacity to produce over 1.2 million tonnes of ordinary portland cement per annum. See more on YTL.

General view of the west side Bukit Sagu, with a large vertical opening on the left side -

View of Sagu from YTL plant -

and the YTL cement trucks waiting to take away the hill

View from the north end

1997 views -

2003 GE -

The untouched southern end -

Bukit Tenggek in 2003 & 2011 -

2014 from west side -

and 1997 view -

FLORA and FAUNA

Both hills have caves and are home to endemic flora and fauna. Of special interest, Bukit Tenggek is home to a snail, Hypselostoma elephas, listed on IUCN Red List as critically endangered. Another critically endangered endemic snail is Plectostoma tenggekensis. More on the snails on Red Orbit and Washington Post.
The hill is also home to Calciphilopteris alleniae, a fern known from only 5 limestone hills in the peninsula. Paraboea bakeri is an endemic species, it can be found only in small shaded populations on the limestone hills in two localities; Bukit Sagu and Bukit Tenggek, see FRIM report.
See more on Siputkuning blog.

ARCHAEOLOGY
These 2 hills are also archaeological sites. Gua Sagu was investigated briefly by Tweedie in 1935, he found pottery and stone implements. Then more recently in 1990 and 1991, staff from the Centre for Archaeological Research, USM and the Department of Museums and Antiquities, made excavations in Gua Sagu and Gua Tenggek. They found a lot of stone tools and some pottery/earthernware and food remains in Gua Sagu. Gua Tenggek revealed similar finds. They concluded that the sites were occupied during the Pleistocene around 14,000 years ago by a Palaeolithic group of people. See ref.

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UPDATE May 2015
IUCN published a report on global species and the snail Plectostoma sciaphilum that was found on Bukit Panching was mentioned. This hill has been completely quarried.

My photo of Bukit Panching taken 1993