Energy

Endangered Apes Face ‘Existential’ Threat From Clean Energy Project

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Tim Pearce Energy Reporter
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The Tapanuli orangutan, discovered for the first time in November, is edging toward extinction as a Chinese state-run company moves forward with a clean energy project.

The Chinese company Sinohydro is clearing forest in northern Sumatra to build a massive dam in the middle of the orangutans’ habitat, creating an “immediate and existential threat,” several experts told The Guardian. Researchers estimate 800 of the great apes are currently alive.

“Building the dam means chopping the orangutan population in half,” Erik Meijaard, director of the conservation group Borneo Futures and Tapanuli orangutan expert, told The Guardian. “You end up with two smaller populations, and these will have much reduced chances of survival, because a small population is more likely to go extinct than a large one.”

The deforestation and construction necessary for the dam is also upsetting other vulnerable animals and indigenous people in the area. The endangered Sumatran tiger is losing habitat to the project, and the forest’s local inhabitants are protesting the dam that would destroy their ancestral land.

Dams, wind turbines and solar panels all produce “clean” energy, but the projects take a significant toll on wildlife, The Washington Free Beacon reports.

Wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds annually. Large solar farms incinerate thousands of birds that fly over their array of panels, hitting them with concentrated rays of reflected sunlight and setting them on fire.

“The Indonesian government needs to respect its own laws,” Meijaard told The Guardian. “Orangutans are protected species. The Indonesian law clearly prohibits any actions that harm a protected species or its nests. It is obvious that the hydrodam is harming a protected species, so why does the government allow this?”

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