The discovery of the Tapanuli orangutan has
not stopped a Chinese state-run company from clearing forest for a planned dam.
Conservationists fear this will be the beginning of the end for a species only
known for six months
Mon 23 Apr 2018 08.13 BSTLast
modified on Mon 23 Apr 2018 15.18 BST
Last November scientists made a
jaw-dropping announcement: they’d
discovered a new great ape hiding in plain sight, only the eighth inhabiting
our planet.
The Tapanuli orangutan survives in northern
Sumatra and it is already the most endangered great ape in the world; researchers
estimate less than 800 individuals survive. But the discovery hasn’t stopped a
Chinese state-run company, Sinohydro, from moving ahead with clearing forest
for a large dam project smack in the middle of the orangutan population.
According to several orangutan experts, Sinohyrdo’s dam represents an immediate
and existential threat to the Tapanuli orangutan.
“Building the dam means chopping the
orangutan population in half,” Erik Meijaard, the director of Borneo Futures and
one of the experts to describe Pongo tapanuliensis, said. “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.”
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