19th Technical Session Meeting of International Coordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Angkor Site
The above meeting (ICC) was held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, from June 8 to 9, and activity reports were given by specialists in various fields from Cambodia and other countries who work around the Angkor Site. Our Institute reported on its investigation on the influence of plants on stones at the Ta Nei site.
Recently, ICC has been concerned with how the ambient environment and plants are related to the deterioration of stones, but they are understood in an extremely simple manner, i.e., the idea that “no trees at site must be cut down since that will cause the stones to deteriorate”. A rush to obtain results may lead to conservation processes being conducted based only on the track records of researchers’ home countries. We ended the presentation by pointing out the need to conduct long-term investigations at local sites for such an issue that is closely associated with the environment, and gain the understanding of teams from other countries that are conducting similar investigations.