Critically endangered wildlife, including rhinoceroses, bears, eagles and some of the last Sumatran tigers could be wiped out if plans go ahead to construct a major road through an Indonesian tropical forest reserve currently being restored by British conservationists.
The 51km-long road, which would enable 850 truckloads of coal a day to be exported more easily to power stations across Southeast Asia, would divide the Harapan Rainforest, which is licensed by the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), with the backing of the British government, the Co-operative Bank, the EU and birdlovers around the world.
The 98,555-hectare reserve was selectively logged in the 1970s, but is considered one of the most diverse places on Earth and a global priority habitat for conservation, containing 20 percent of the remaining lowland forest on Sumatra.
“It is so rich in wildlife that it can be described as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Animals found in the forest include the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant, otters, porcupines, bears and turtles,” an RSPB spokesman said.
“Over 300 species of birds breed there, including hornbills, eagles, storks, parrots, kingfishers and rare pheasants. The rafflesia flower — the world’s biggest — blooms on the forest floor and a huge variety of insects can be found [there] too,” he added.
The coal road is expected to be more than 50m wide and would lead from a group of five large coalmines in south Sumatra to the Lalan River in Jambi Province. It would directly remove about 154 hectares of rainforest, but could affect many thousands more by splitting the forest into two separate concessions, allowing hunters and illegal loggers access to the forest.
“Such fragmentation will increase the incidence of inbreeding and may even cause the extinction of these species. This is particularly important for the Sumatran tiger population, which consists of as few as 12 to 20 individuals and is an international conservation concern,” said the RSPB, which manages the concession with Birdlife International and Indonesian bird group Burung.
The Sumatran tiger needs large joined-up forest blocks to thrive and used to roam across the whole island. It now lives in isolated populations, such as in Harapan, its habitat having been drastically reduced by clearings for agriculture, plantations and settlements. Habitat destruction forces the tigers into settled areas in search of food and conflict between humans and tigers is a serious problem in Sumatra.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, US President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House
Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia was expected to meet Argentine President Javier Milei yesterday on a regional tour to drum up support ahead of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s swearing-in for a third term. Venezuelan authorities have offered a reward of US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of Gonzalez Urrutia, who insists he beat Maduro at the polls in July last year and is recognized by the US as Venezuela’s “president-elect.” The 75-year-old fled to Spain in September after being threatened with arrest by Maduro’s government, but has pledged to return to his country to be sworn in as
RSS