SOMETIMES you just can鈥檛 win. Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton was accused of hypocrisy when it announced plans to airlift 48 orang-utans into a new wildlife reserve in Indonesian Borneo, as it was simultaneously preparing to destroy the apes鈥� habitat not far away with its Maruwai coal-mining project.
Now, two years on, it is coming under fire again in stories carrying headlines along the lines of 鈥淗ope of freedom for orang-utans dashed鈥�. True, BHP is abandoning the airlift 鈥� but that鈥檚 because it is pulling out of the mining project too, citing a dramatic fall in world coal prices in the past year.
Whether that is good news for the orang-utans remains an open question. The fear among environmental groups is that loggers, palm oil farmers and possibly other mining companies will move in on the forest vacated by BHP. Without the alternative accommodation previously offered by BHP, the orang-utans will once more be vulnerable.
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