Extraordinary Threats Require Extraordinary Actions

Extraordinary Threats Require Extraordinary Actions Cave-protection efforts are, and need to be, generally long-term endeavors. These efforts involve committees, lobbying, legislation, educational programs, social events, symposia etc. Such commendable long-term efforts are very necessary and can be very effective against regular, sustained, everyday type threats. However, some threats to caves are sporadic, singular and very extraordinary or unexpected. These occasional occurrences can be considered rare, even exceptional. But unfortunately, they also happen to be exceptionally destructive, causing irreversible losses in a very swift manner.

It needs to be recognized, therefore, that such exceptional threats require an entirely different type of response. In this article, we will first cover some examples of such extraordinary threats, then go on to emphasize possible responses that might lead to positive protection outcomes. Although these examples come from various geographical areas and ages, they are only a small selection illustrating the diversity of man's relentless pursuit in destroying pristine cave environments.

Caves as film sets Over the years many caves must have been used for filming movies, causing varying amounts of damage. To see how far such damages can go, we'll take two examples, a very recent one and one from 30 years ago. “Yor, the Hunter from the Future� was released in 1983. It is an Italian B-movie, but was shot in Turkey. Significant parts of the film were shot in the Yarimburgaz Cave, which was convenient because of its proximity to Istanbul. Nowadays, the expanding city has actually encompassed the cave well within the residential areas.

Yarimburgaz is a very special and important cave. The first excavations here started in 1959.

Further archeological work was done in 1963-65, and longer excavations undertaken after 1986.

The findings represent uninterrupted continuous habitation from Lower Paleolithic to Byzantine times, as revealed by 15 layers of stratigraphy. The oldest recovered artifacts are dated to almost 700,000 years ago.

The cave provided the first, and only, hominid bone fragment found in Turkey to date. A very wide range of ancient animal fossils were also recovered. Prior to these excavations, there were no known traces of cave bears in eastern Balkans or the Thrace. Yarimburgaz excavations showed that the cave bear existed in this region in the Middle Pleistocene.

In addition to such old findings, the cave also boasts more recent cave paintings as well, dated to more recent times.

Obviously, it is a very important cave that needs the highest level of protection. But during the filming of the 1983 film, “Yor, the Hunter from the Future,� the film crew built a dam inside the cave, pumped tons of water in, then broke the dam to film a dramatic flood scene. The footage is terrifying, not because it is a professionally filmed scary scene, but because of the abuse the cave has seen.

The related part of the plot goes like this: Yor tracks some hostile cavemen to their Lair (Yarimburgaz Cave); he shoots a giant bat with his bow and arrow. He uses the dead bat like a hang glider to storm the cave and charge out the back after flooding sections of the cave, accidentally killing everyone inside, the innocent imprisoned villagers, as well as the whole species of the blue cavemen.

It is also interesting to note that the film was listed in the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made and was also nominated for three 1983 Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst New Star, Worst Musical Score and Worst Original Song!

All major filming involves dozens of people, lights, vehicles etc, which are, in themselves, a huge concern for protection in a cave, but the above example shows that damages can go way beyond what one would ordinarily imagine.

As a second example, it is worthwhile discussing the filming of the Expendables II in the Devetashka Cave in Bulgaria, because it is so recent and because it is so high profile.

The 2012 Hollywood block buster film Expendables II is no ordinary film. The 100 million US$ budget film features Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger among several other famous names.

On the other hand, Devetashka is no ordinary cave either. It is truly magnificent – otherwise, the producers wouldn't have selected it. It is one of the biggest caves in Bulgaria at almost 2.5 kilometers long, but also one of the most important natural habitats of bats in Europe. In fact, it hosts thousands of bats among which are 13 endangered species.

Under current Bulgarian legislation Devetashka cave is restricted to tourism and scientific research. So a whole Hollywood action film crew, with vehicles, lights, personnel etc is very very out of place here. The filming in the cave also legally breaches the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats.

The producers had actually agreed to not film explosions, car chases and fires near the cave.

However, that didn't stop the bat population to be reduced by up to three quarters from approximately 30,000 to 8,000, as recorded by Bulgarian environmentalists. Even if the numbers can be disputed, we must still consider even the remote possibility of the risk: one - possibly multiple - endangered mammal species at risk of extinction. Even if the risk is small, what are we

taking that risk for: a forgettable Hollywood movie.

These two examples from the filming industry, 30-years apart, are not isolated incidents. The Devetashka case in particular, demonstrates a clear need for international action and caver involvement at short notice to prevent irreversible damages. The Bulgarian cavers have done their part in trying to prevent it, but were unsuccessful.

Wars and armed conflict In a paper about exceptional means of destruction, wars and armed conflict must naturally have a place. The inconvenient fact – in terms of cave protection – is that caves can indeed provide very good shelter from the enemy, especially if you are a guerrilla force fighting against a much stronger adversary.

Take Laos: US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos between 1964 and 1973 than was dropped during the whole of the Second World War. In this period, Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. Laos is the most heavily-bombed country, per capita, in the world.

The karstic interest in this story involves the Viengxay caves in Houaphanh Province of NorthEastern Laos. This extensive network of caves were used by the Pathet Lao during the Second Indochina War to shelter from American bombardment. Up to 23,000 people lived in the caves, which contained a hospital, a school, Pathet Lao offices, bakeries, shops, and even a theater. The area was home to the Communist army, who were fighting the royalist forces, based in Vientiane.

But in terms of cave destruction, the most extensive sweep must be the one carried out in the Tora Bora Mountains in eastern Afghanistan. Tora Bora was variously described by the western media to be an 'impregnable cave fortress' housing 2000 men complete with a hospital, a hydroelectric power plant, offices, a hotel, arms and ammunition stores, roads large enough to drive a tank into, and elaborate tunnel and ventilation systems. Both the British and American press published elaborate plans of the base which was readily accepted by the public. When presented with assumed 3D drawings in an NBC interview, the United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said "This is serious business, there's not one of those, there are many of those".

Consequently, the area was heavily bombed and grenades tossed into every small hole located by painstaking search by infantry.

Unlike Hollywood films, real wars leave precious little maneuvering space for civil organizations like ourselves to effectively lobby for protection of caves. Therefore, it seems inevitable that when we or more likely future generations of cavers - explore these caves, they'll need to have training in disarming live ordnance and distinguish weapons-grade speleo-genesis from the geological type.

But all is not lost. War-related damage in caves is sometimes more subtle – and preventable. For example, the Devatashka cave mentioned before was labeled a military site and was used for the storage of petroleum until some time ago. There are numerous other caves worldwide that serve

military purposes or have done so in the past and need cleaning-up.

As an interesting example, consider the discovery of Botmeh Cave by Speleo Club du Liban, near Beirut. They were obviously not the first “discoverers� of the cave, as they realized that the bottom of the first pit was covered with a vast amount of ordnance including rockets and grenades, some of which were deemed to be live. That was one exploration cut short. And that is one extreme example of a cave in need of an extensive clean-up operation.

Unfortunately, war-related cave destruction is not a thing of the past. It is happening now in almost every armed conflict around the world.

Extraordinary Dam Stories New dam construction projects routinely submerge numerous caves every year worldwide. This quite ordinary threat also requires a special kind of response, not for prevention in most cases, but for swift exploration. The limited amount of time until construction is completed and caves are submerged may require a large collaborative effort involving several groups and/or disciplines.

But there is more to dam construction then submerging of caves as the following case studies illustrate.

The Antelias Cave in Lebanon was not submerged behind a dam, it became the dam itself. A 3.5 meter high blocking wall was built nearly in the middle of the cave. The volume of the cave became the main reservoir for stored water. A tunnel was built to allow the stored water flow to a water station where it is chlorinated and sent as drinking water to homes.

Another tragic story comes from Turkey. Construction in one of several dam projects across Turkey stumbled on one quite unexpected problem: some 30,000 bats living in an otherwise insignificant cave, that lied, unfortunately, below the calculated maximum water level. Having missed the potential problem in years of planning, the solution was promising: build an identical cave on a higher level and the bats would simply move there. The constructors actually blasted open a whole new cave out of solid rock several hundred meters above the existing one and dug a connecting vertical by-pass between them. They even hauled loads of guano from the old (natural) cave to the new (artificial) one.

It was a well-meant endeavor, except that the 30,000 strong bat colony refused to cooperate.

Anxious to get the dam in operation, the administration decided to take stronger measures and simply blocked all entrances to the natural cave.

The unfortunate situation in this story is that we don't know exactly what the final result is. We are told the recent count in the new artificial cave is 8000 bats, but the counting is done by (only) the State Water Works (DSI) organization, the same organization that was responsible for building the dam in the first place. It is currently not possible to get independent verification.

Conclusion Fast-developing, singular, extraordinary threats to caves can cause huge irreversible losses.

Recognizing this fact, we are inevitably lead to the realization that such extraordinary threats require extraordinary responses. A few essential characteristics of a possibly successful response can be identified as follows: •

The response must be swift. There is often little time between the identification of threat and a point-of-no-return, when the damage has already been inflicted. The available time frame for action is sometimes weeks (e.g. filming cases) or years (dam construction). But the common characteristic is that it is very limited in comparison to the amount of work that needs to be done within that time period.

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The response must be international. A response that transcends borders is possibly the most effective approach that can be put to use. National cavers should not be left alone when trying to save a world-class cave from a Hollywood studio. And in major construction projects (not limited to dams), international recognition is potentially a huge source of pressure on authorities, that might well shift opinion in the decision making process for the better.

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It must be a collaborative effort, not only across borders, but also across disciplines and interests. The caving community is far too small and the academic institutions too busy and limited in resources. But there exists a huge potential outside these that must be somehow informed and involved.

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Social media is the crucial tool that must be effectively used in forming the above mentioned swift-international-collaborative response. The role of social media, like Twitter and Facebook, has already been demonstrated to be surprisingly effective in getting messages across to wider audiences. Recognizing its importance, both as individuals and as clubs/organizations, is the first step in putting it to better use and getting more and more people involved in a cause.

We would venture to suggest that a permanent Rapid Response Team be established in an international organization such as the European Speleological Federation for this purpose.

Extraordinary Threats Require Extraordinary Actions Murat Egrikavuk, Ali Yamac Obruk Caving Group/ TURKEY

The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made 1983 Golden Raspberry Nominations: Worst New Star Worst Musical Score Worst Original Song