Highlight Activities 2022: The threatened Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila calcicola—not a quarry species, but a “quarried species”.

Limestone karst habitats are threatened globally by quarrying for production of concrete and

cement. A significant area of limestone karst shared among the provinces of Saraburi, Lopburi and

Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, encompasses the entire global range of a threatened bird taxon,

the Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila calcicola. Approximately 10%of the suitable habitat

for this species had already been lost to quarrying by 2020, and the extension of already proposed

concessions could increase this to one-quarter, with the total area impacted by proposed future

quarrying as great as 273 sq. km, or one and a half times greater than the entire area thought to

support the species, within a few years. Only 2.66 sq km (1.4% of the species’ range) has received

formal habitat protection as national park. We propose further surveys of the babbler be incorporated

as part of a wider biotic survey of the Saraburi Group Limestones, leading to the development

of an integrated management and zoning plan that takes account of the distributional knowledge of

other threatened endemic taxa of this region.

Figure 1. The study area, showing the distribution of limestone karst, existing and proposed

quarrying concessions, and known locations of the Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila

calcicola.

 

Round, P. D., Tantipisanuh, N, Eiamampai, K. & Asensio, N. 2022.  The threatened Rufous Limestone Babbler Gypsophila calcicola—not a quarry species, but a “quarried species”. Bird Conservation International 32 (3): 414–422. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270921000277