Destructive Dams

Mighty Earth has exposed a new threat to the rarest great ape on the planet, and the world is watching. The critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan of northern Sumatra was just identified in 2017 and fewer than 800 exist in the world, but satellite imagery from the past two weeks shows their habitat being eaten away by deforestation.

Now is the time for the global economy to move from an extractive view of nature, where nature is seen as an ‘externality’ with a value of zero until mined or logged to a more regenerative view.  Like all life on earth, including orangutans, humans depend on the ecosystem services provided by natural processes and yet they do not appear in our balance sheets. 

Our hearts go out to the families of the people who have been killed or injured in this tragic disaster.

In a win for the endangered Tapanuli orangutans, the Batang Toru dam project in North Sumatra is halted over environmental concerns.

The dam's backers have mischaracterized, exaggerated, or manufactured much of the rationale for the project.

Statement on recent MoU between NSHE and PanEco in the name of Tapanuli Orangutan

This International Orangutan Day, join Mighty Earth in our fight to protect the Tapanuli orangutan and sign the petition to Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

Fact-finding mission discovers growing local opposition to dam construction

This chant rang out in NYC and London, as demonstrators converged on Mandarin Oriental Hotel to call for an end to their complicity in the destruction of orangutan habitat. Mandarin is owned by parent company Jardine Matheson, whose corporate activities threaten to wipe out the world’s last remaining population of Tapanuli orangutans.

Mighty Earth is joining the Ape Alliance and other allies in a dramatic protest against Jardine Matheson -- owner of the internationally acclaimed, 5-star Mandarin Oriental Hotels to draw attention to the precarious state of the Tapanuli orangutan, an endangered ape threatened by industrial development.

The Batang Toru dam would permanently disrupt the habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan and would contribute to the first extinction of a great ape – our closest cousins in the animal kingdom – in all our recorded history.

The coalition to protect the Tapanuli orangutan has only been driven by foreigners. The group, which is the state-owned Sinohydro Company, is the building company of the dam. Those promoting the construction of a falling back on the familiar patter of blaming outsiders for destruction happenings in their own countries. But the science is clear: if the dam is built, the Tapanuli orangutan will go extinct.

The stage is set for a crucial showdown in a long-running battle to save a newly discovered rare species of orangutan from possible extinction at the hands of a planned US$ 1.6 billion hydroelectric dam project.