(Bloomberg) — A third of Africa’s gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees are at risk because they live in areas that overlap with mining operations for metals critical to the global clean energy transition.
Nearly 180,000 great apes in Africa are under threat as mining activities drive deforestation, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. The true impact might be even higher because mining companies are not required to make biodiversity data public, the researchers wrote.
“Mining harms apes through pollution, habitat loss, increased hunting pressure, and disease, but this is an incomplete picture,” said Jessica Junker, lead author of the paper and a researcher at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. “A shift away from fossil fuels is good for the climate but must be done in a way that does not jeopardize biodiversity.”
Demand for minerals needed to make rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles is on the rise. Africa is home to a third of the world’s mineral resources, only 5% of which have been mined so far. The continent also hosts some of the world’s largest, most diverse and fragile natural ecosystems.
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