180,000 Great Apes Are at Risk Due to Efforts for Clean Energy [Study]

Humans are campaigning for cleaner energy. However, the efforts for green energy have negative impacts on great apes.

Green Apes Are Threatened By Green Energy Push

In a new study, 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 discovered that mining for minerals affects great apes like gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees. There's reportedly an overlap in the mining regions and "Critical Habitats" of the monkeys affecting nearly 180,000 great apes.

Approximately 80% of apes, especially in West Africa, reside within 19.3 square miles of mining activity. According to author Jessica Junker, a researcher at Re:wild and a former researcher at iDiv and MLU, their study indicates that up to one-third of Africa's great ape population faces possible dangers from mining activities, indicating an underestimated threat level.

"The highest spatial overlaps between mining projects and critical ape habitats were found in West Africa, with over 80 percent of the western chimpanzee population at risk. Conversely, central Africa showed the largest impact in terms of affected individuals, totaling over 130,000," she added.

After examining the locations of mining sites throughout these nations, the researchers determined that each one had a 6.2-mile buffer zone surrounding it that was impacted directly by habitat degradation, noise pollution, and deforestation. An additional 31 miles was identified as possibly being impacted by the mines' indirect effects, such as the construction of new infrastructure and roads, which would increase the apes' exposure to diseases, habitat degradation, and poaching.

According to Junker, great apes face a variety of threats as a result of mining activities. These include direct threats like habitat destruction, fragmentation, and degradation, as well as indirect risks like increased disease transmission and hunting pressure brought on by mining operations and the influx of people looking for work.

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About Great Apes

Great apes, including orangutans, chimpanzees, eastern and western gorillas, and bonobos, are rapidly losing a large portion of their forest habitat in Africa and Asia due to human activities including mining, agriculture, and commercial logging.

Due to the fact that many African great ape populations are located in regions where civil conflicts are raging, conservation is challenging, if not impossible. Previously a means of subsistence, bushmeat hunting has grown to be a significant industry in West and Central Africa.

The subspecies of primates known as the Great Apes include humans. As primates, humans belong to the hominoids (Superfamily Hominoidea) primate subgroup, which includes all other apes.

The Great Apes and Lesser Apes are two further subgroups of this ape group. Since humans' bodies resemble those of Great Apes both genetically and structurally, we are categorized as members of the Great Apes subgroup, sometimes referred to as hominids (Family Hominidae).

Primates are among the most threatened animal species; the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species lists 67% of them globally and 73% of them in Africa as at least threatened. All of the primates classified as great apes - gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos- are classified as either Endangered or Critically Endangered in the wild at this time.

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