Study warns green energy could seriously endanger African great apes

By James Gamble via SWNS

Green energy could seriously endanger great apes in Africa, a new study warns.

A surge in the mining of rare earth materials for cleaner energy solutions will put more than a third of Africa's great apes, such as gorillas, at risk.

The rising demand for materials such as copper, lithium and cobalt - which are critical for the transition to green energy - could threaten the survival of humanity's closest relatives.

Large-scale mining operations on the continent have already caused rapid deforestation of tropical rainforests that will put around 180,000 gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees at risk.

A new study suggests the threat of mining, if not properly regulated, could do just as much harm as good for the environment.

The rising demand for critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and other rare earth elements required for the large-scale transition to cleaner energy has led to a huge mining surge across Africa, where a large share of those mineral resources remains relatively unexploited.

However, this mining drives deforestation of the continent's tropical rainforests, which are home to a plethora of species including humans’ closest living relatives, the great apes.

The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, estimates the threat of mining to great apes to have been significantly underestimated.

Mining companies are not required to publish biodiversity data so the true impact of the practice on biodiversity could be even higher than predicted.

The study team was comprised of researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the non-profit conservation organization Re:wild - founded by a group of renowned conservation scientists and the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The researchers used data on operational and pre-operational mining sites in 17 African nations and defined 10km buffer zones to account for direct impacts such as habitat destruction and light and noise pollution.

They also defined 50km buffer zones for indirect impacts linked to increased human activity near mining sites, such as new roads and infrastructure built to access these once-remote areas and people migrating to these areas for employment.

These activities increase pressures on great apes and their habitats through increased hunting, habitat loss, and higher risk of disease transmission.

By integrating data on the density distribution of great apes, the researchers investigated how many African apes could potentially be negatively impacted by mining and mapped areas where frequent mining and high ape densities overlapped.

In the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Guinea, overlaps of high ape density and mining areas - including the 10 km and 50 km buffer zones - were the largest.

The most significant overlap of mining and chimpanzee density, both in terms of proportion of population and overall numbers, was found in Guinea, where more than 23,000 chimpanzees - up to 83 percent of Guinea’s ape population - could be directly or indirectly impacted by mining activities.

In general, the most sensitive areas - those with relatively high ape and mining densities - are not protected.

Dr. Jessica Junker, first author of the study and a researcher at Re:wild, explained: "Currently, studies on other species suggest that mining harms apes through pollution, habitat loss, increased hunting pressure, and disease, but this is an incomplete picture.

"The lack of data sharing by mining projects hampers our scientific understanding of its true impact on great apes and their habitat.”

The researchers also looked at how mining areas intersect with what is considered 'Critical Habitat' - regions crucial for their unique biodiversity, unrelated to apes.

Critical Habitat designation enforces strict environmental regulations, especially for mining projects seeking funding from entities like the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - a branch of the World Bank that lends money to the private sector - or other lenders adhering to similar standards and aiming to operate within these zones.

The researchers discovered a 20 percent overlap between mining areas and Critical Habitat regions.

Previous efforts to map Critical Habitats in Africa have overlooked significant portions of ape habitats that would qualify under international benchmarks such as the IFC Performance Standard 6.

“Companies operating in these areas should have adequate mitigation and compensation schemes in place to minimize their impact, which seems unlikely, given that most companies lack robust species baseline data that are required to inform these actions,” said Dr Tenekwetche Sop, manager of the IUCN SSC A.P.E.S. Database at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History - a repository of all great ape population data.

“Encouraging these companies to share their invaluable ape survey data with our database serves as a pivotal step towards transparency in their operations.

"Only through such collaborative efforts can we comprehensively gauge the true extent of mining activities' effects on great apes and their habitats.”

Though the indirect and long-term impacts of mining are difficult to predict, they often extend well beyond the boundaries of actual mining projects.

But these risks are rarely considered and mitigated by mining companies.

Current offset schemes are also developed to last as long as mining projects are active - usually around 20 years - whereas most mining impacts on great apes are permanent.

Dr. Genevieve Campbell, a senior researcher at Re:wild, said risks to apes during the exploratory phase should also be considered, as the early stage was currently 'poorly regulated'.

”Mining companies need to focus on avoiding their impacts on great apes as much as possible and use offsetting as a last resort as there is currently no example of a great ape offset that has been successful."

Dr. Junker added that though the mining of these rare earth materials was being done in the pursuit of a greener world, its effects on biodiversity could make it counterintuitive and damaging to nature.

“A shift away from fossil fuels is good for the climate but must be done in a way that does not jeopardize biodiversity," she explained.

"In its current iteration it may even be going against the very environmental goals we’re aiming for."