Imperilled Ape: Dam Company’s Use of ‘Local Wisdom’ Reeks of Greenwashing
An international team of researchers and conservation practitioners is intensely worried about the fate of the world’s rarest ape.
The Tapanuli orangutan is the rarest great ape in the world. Fewer than 800 animals remain, divided into three tiny sub-populations in the Batang Toru highlands in Sumatra, Indonesia.
A planned hydrodam could be a death knell for the species, as it will slice across the most critical area of population connectivity for the ape.
Orangutans are so sensitive to population losses that the mortality of just 1 percent of the population per year could drive the species extinct. This is why there has been intense local and international opposition to the dam.
But the Indonesian corporation behind the dam, PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy, has been pushing hard to convince investors that the hydrodam is ‘green’ and can be developed in a way that won’t hurt the orangutan. Scientists have demolished many of their key arguments, and criticized the intensely heavy-handed manner in which the project has been advanced.
With help from public-relations firms specializing in corporate crisis management, the dam company is now pushing a particularly disingenuous argument: that traditional wisdom from local communities will protect the orangutan. Here we show that this argument is false and baseless — so much so, that it’s even inspired a scientific satire.
LOCAL WISDOM OR GREENWASHING?
The principle of incorporating local wisdom may sound charming, but it falls apart on close inspection.
No amount of local wisdom will prevent destruction of the orangutan’s habitat. The hydrodam would sever crucial forest connections between remaining populations of the Tapanuli orangutan.
Furthermore, local people are clearly part of the problem. Hunting of the orangutan is still common. In September, a Tapanuli orangutan was severely wounded by local farmers, and the species’ name in the local Batak language means ‘white meat’.
Indeed, the principle reason that Tapanuli orangutan still survives in the highlands of Batang Toru because it is rugged and inaccessible to hunters, loggers, and land-clearing farmers and agribusiness corporations.
This is not to claim that support from local communities won’t be crucial for the long-term survival of Batang Toru forests, nor that ethnic groups in the area lack knowledge of the ape. But relying on presumed traditional and sacred respect for orangutans is a cynical distortion of reality, and will not save the Tapanuli orangutan.
BIG RISKS FOR FUNDERS
Opportunities for free dialogue about the Batang Toru hydrodam appear to be closing, largely because of the pressures and intransigence of the dam corporation and its allies in the Indonesian government.
However, two major financial institutions, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the Bank of China, have declined to fund the dam. And the International Union for Conservation of Nature has requested that the development be halted to allow for independent studies on its potentially grave biodiversity impacts.
It is our duty as scientists and practitioners with decades of experience in Indonesia to underscore the gross distortions of fact and pseudo-realities being created by the dam corporation and its public-relations firms.
We urge financial institutions not to support the Batang Toru hydrodam — or risk serious reputational damage by being linked to the demise of the world’s rarest ape.
