A billion-dollar hydroelectric dam development in Indonesia that threatens the habitat of the world’s rarest great ape has sparked fresh concerns about the effects of China’s globe-spanning infrastructure drive.
The site of the dam in the Batang Toru rainforest on Sumatra Island is the only known habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, a newly discovered species that numbers about 800 individuals in total.
The US$1.6 billion project, which is expected to be operational by 2022, is to cut through the heart of the critically endangered animal’s habitat, which is also home to agile gibbons, siamangs and Sumatran tigers.
Indonesian firm PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy is building the power plant with backing from Sinosure, a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) that insures overseas investment projects, and the Bank of China, company documents show.
Chinese SOE Sinohydro, which built the mammoth Three Gorges Dam, has been awarded the design and construction contract for the project.
The development is one of dozens being pushed by the Indonesian government to improve electricity supply throughout the sprawling archipelago, parts of which are regularly plagued by blackouts.
However, the Chinese-backed project has sparked fierce resistance from conservationists, who said the potential environmental risk has already seen the World Bank Group shy away from involvement.
However, its Chinese backers appear undeterred, something critics said underscores the troubling environmental impact of Beijing’s trademark Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to link Asia, Europe and Africa with a network of ports, highways and railways.
“This issue is becoming in some ways the face of the Belt and Road Initiative,” Professor Bill Laurance, director of the Center for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science at James Cook University in Australia, told reporters. “I think this crystallizes in a way that people can understand what a tsunami of 7,000-plus projects will mean for nature.”
Until recently, scientists thought there were only two genetically distinct types of orangutan, Bornean and Sumatran.
However, in 1997 biological anthropologist Erik Meijaard observed an isolated population of the great apes in Batang Toru, south of the known habitat for Sumatran orangutans, and scientists began to investigate if it was a unique species.
Researchers studied the DNA, skulls and teeth of 33 orangutans killed in human-animal conflict before concluding that they had indeed discovered a new species, giving it the scientific name Pongo tapanuliensis or Tapanuli orangutan.
The 510-megawatt dam, which is to supply peak-load electricity to North Sumatra Province, would flood part of the ape’s habitat and include a network of roads and high-voltage transmission lines.
Critics have said it will fragment the three existing populations, who are living in a tract of forest less than one-fifth the size of the greater Jakarta region, and lead to inbreeding.
Meijaard said the dam would be the “death knell” for the animal.
“Roads bring in hunters [and] settlers — it’s the start, generally, of things falling apart,” he said.
However, the plight of the ape seems to have been given little attention in the environmental impact assessment by PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy, according to conservationists and scientists who have seen the document.
In August, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) filed a legal challenge against the environmental permit approved by the North Sumatran government, saying it failed to address the dam’s impact on wildlife, communities living downstream, or the risk of damage from earthquakes in the seismically active region.
PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy and the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry declined to respond to requests for comment.
Bank of China said in a statement that it did not comment on specific projects, but added that it takes “all relevant factors into consideration when formulating policies and making decisions.”
The World Bank, through its sister organization the International Finance Corp, declined to comment on any aspect of its initial ties to the project — outlined in World Bank documents dated March last year — or environmentalists’ claims it pulled out due to habitat concerns.
“We really hope the financial backers of this project will see there are environmental and social problems with the project and decide not to support the project,” said Yuyun Eknas of Walhi.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was