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Hydro project versus rare orangutan
In a recent article, the government was commended on its effective efforts to protect the Tapanuli orangutans, but digging a little deeper indicates the situation might not be as rosy as suggested
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span>In a recent article, the government was commended on its effective efforts to protect the Tapanuli orangutans, but digging a little deeper indicates the situation might not be as rosy as suggested.
For the past few years, PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy (NSHE) has been looking for political, financial and popular support to push through its hydroelectric dam project in the Batang Toru area in North Sumatra. Hydroelectricity has a nice ring to it. It can produce clean energy, which in a world increasingly affected by climate change and air pollution is important. Unfortunately, the dam is to be built in an area that happens to be the only place on Earth where the Tapanuli orangutan lives.
This species of orangutan was only described in 2017. Some 767 animals are left, which makes it the Earth’s rarest great ape species, rarer than, for example, the mountain gorilla.
Surely if such a rare species occurs in an area that was being developed, all involved parties would agree about the impact of these developments on that species. However, things aren’t that simple. First, there appears to be confusion as to whether the area to be developed for the dam is forested or not. Secondly, there is confusion as to whether there are indeed orangutans in the area scheduled for development.
When, in 2015, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was still considering to finance the Batang Toru dam, the subsequent environmental impact assessment showed that 5,155 hectares of the 5,968 ha in the affected area of the hydro project was natural forest. That’s about 86 percent forested.
Strangely, however, a recent article in The Jakarta Post claimed that the entire development area for the hydropower plant consists of rice fields, dry farmland, rubber plantations and other forms of land use, but mentions no forest.
Furthermore, the 2014 environmental impact assessment and ground surveys in 2015 showed orangutans were found throughout the development area, including in all areas scheduled for pipelines, dam and infrastructure. This appears to have been one reason for the IFC withdrawing from plans to help finance the dam. However, the recent Post article mentioned that the orangutan habitat only occurs outside the project area in the conservation forest. This is rather surprising in light of the earlier findings of orangutans in the area.
In addition, government surveys in 2018 also indicated that orangutans are indeed found in the area. A photo in the report showed “a pregnant individual Tapanuli orangutan”, while a second photo depicted “another individual Tapanuli orangutan forced out from its habitat due to the hydroelectric construction project”. This vagueness on whether or not orangutans are found in the development area for the hydro project has only one purpose: to confuse the public and government.
The reality as supported by long-term research in the area is simple. The Tapanuli orangutan is found throughout the Batang Toru area, including the hydro project area. The species is divided across three forest blocks that certainly up until 2018 could still have allowed for orangutan dispersal between them: a western block with 581 individuals and two eastern blocks with 162 and 24 individuals respectively.
All three populations are threatened by deforestation and hunting, but the main threat to the species is the hydroelectric project that would forever separate the large western population from the two small eastern ones by destroying the area with the highest densities of Tapanuli orangutans. This means the populations in the two eastern blocks are to die out within the foreseeable future, simply because they are too small to survive, while the western block would eventually become unviable.
As Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar stated, there must never be a story of the Tapanuli orangutans going extinct. So what to do? While playing down the severity of the threats to the Tapanuli orangutans and other wildlife, the NSHE realizes it needs to act.
The company’s new idea is to rely on the local wisdom of the Batang Toru people to help save the species. While this may sound appealing, there are some major problems with this approach. First, no local wisdom in the world is going to prevent the orangutan habitat from being destroyed by the hydro project. Its development simply means crucial forests connections between the three populations will be severed, with or without wise local people.
The second problem is that people are actually part of the problem. Interview surveys from 2007 to 2009 indicated that the hunting of Tapanuli orangutans was still quite common. In fact, in the dictionary of local languages, the local Batak Toba name for orangutan, juhut bontar, translates as “white meat”.
Furthermore, the first and only scientific specimen of Pongo tapanuliensis was killed by local people when it entered their garden.
Indeed comanagement of forests and wildlife could provide part of the solution for the long-term management of the Batang Toru area; however, it cannot contribute to saving the Tapanuli orangutan in the short term. Indonesia’s environment law requires that the NSHE company takes full responsibility for avoiding any negative impacts on the protected Tapanuli orangutans. Passing that responsibility on to local communities is a cop-out and cannot absolve the company from its management and species protection responsibility.
The NSHE should face up to reality. The scientific consensus is that no mitigation can offset the negative impacts of the Batang Toru hydro project on the Tapanuli orangutan.
We reiterate the call from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature for the development and adoption of a conservation management plan for the Tapanuli orangutan to be based on an independent, objective population and habitat viability assessment before any projects potentially impacting the species advance any further.
The Indonesian people and government will need to choose between a great ape species and a hydro project that would produce a mere 510 megawatts of electricity and should realize they cannot have both.
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Erik Meijaard is director of Borneo Futures, Brunei Darrusalam and chair of the Oil Palm Task Force at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; Serge Wich is a professor in primate biology at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
