Tapanuli. Photo by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. 
 
In a worldwide press release, researchers from ALERT  strongly criticized an Indonesian corporation — for using “deplorable” tactics to promote a project that would imperil the world’s rarest species of great ape.
The corporation, North Sumatera Hydro Energy (NSHE), is “pressuring and cajoling scientists, throwing money around to buy influence, making false statements, and now has hired a public relations firm specializing in corporate crisis management,” said ALERT director Bill Laurance.
“These tactics are simply deplorable.”
Ape in Danger
Only 800 individuals of the Tapanuli Orangutan …

Indigenous protests against Belo Monte at the UN’s sustainable development conference in Rio, 2012. Fernando Bizerra Jr / EPA
 
There are few dams in the world that capture the imagination as much as Belo Monte, built on the “Big Bend” of the Xingu river in the Brazilian Amazon. Its construction has involved an army of 25,000 workers working round the clock since 2011 to excavate over 240m cubic metres of soil and rock, pour three million cubic metres of concrete, and divert 80% of the river’s flow through 24 turbines. …

Dam-building industry has once again demonstrated its full neglect to human needs and rights.Monday evening, July 23, a  dam of the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower project in Southern Laos collapsed causing tremendous devastation in downstream villages and floodplains. This is at least the 4th major large dam failure during 2018, and with monsoon season to last for at least another 2 months it may be not the last one yet. Reservoirs are already full to the brim in Thailand, Northern India and many other Asian countries.  We publish a short …

Agrawal starting his protest in Haridwar [image by: Tarun Bharat Sangh]
 
GD Agrawal is in the hospital, under protective custody. It has been more than a month since he has eaten, but the frail old man is ready to give his life for the river he cares for more than anything in the world – the Ganga.
Known as Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand after he took vows to become a Hindu ascetic some years ago, Agrawal is no ordinary protestor, nor a fringe environmentalist. In his past life as an academic, …

China’s National  World Heritage Committee keeps its word! Three years ago  Dr. Du Yue, secretary general of the Chinese delegation at the World Heritage Committee Session,  listened to the RwB representative lamenting that Chinese Exim Bank was about to support the Egiin Gol Hydro Project in  Mongolia which may threaten Lake Baikal World Heritage site  and joyfully responded: “Times changed, this is unlikely to happen. And if You wait for several years, You will see China itself removing dams that affect World Heritage”. Since he was laughing, we decided that …