Bank Of China Urged To Stop Aid To Indonesian Dam

A group of environmental activists protested outside the Bank of China office in Central on Friday, urging them to withdraw funding for the construction of a dam in Indonesia, which they said would threaten the existence of a newly discovered species of orangutan.

They say the Batang Toru hydropower project would have serious implications for the newly discovered Tapanuli orangutan species, with only around 800 left in the wild. It is listed as "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

The dozen or so activists were responding to a call from Friends of the Earth Indonesia, and delivered a letter to the bank, detailing their concerns with the project in North Sumatra. Similar letters are being delivered to the bank's other locations around the world.

Mara McCaffery, the founder of Orangutan Aid, said construction of the dam “would destroy all the surrounding forest”.

"The dam divides [the Tapanuli orangutan's] actual habitat," she told RTHK's Phoebe Ng.

"All sorts of infrastructure [needs] to be built, like tunnels and roads, and the impact could actually decimate this species completely, just two years after it has been discovered," she said.

The activists also raised concerns that the dam project would impoverish local communities who depend on the Batang Toru River for their livelihoods, and believe there are major flaws in the project's environmental impact assessment.