Court reprieve for China’s rare green peafowl but it’s not out of the woods yet
- Provincial court upholds decision to suspend work on Jiasa River dam project
- Conservation groups want formal, permanent stop to work that threatens endangered bird’s habitat
But the Yunnan Higher People’s Court also dismissed an environmental group’s formal legal bid to end the construction for good and permanently safeguard the habitat of a species that is rarer than the giant panda.
The green peafowl is China’s only native peacock, with just 500 estimated to be left in the wild after decades of excessive hunting, loss of habitat, pesticide poisoning and deforestation.
The Jiasa River dam project on the upper reaches of the Red River in Shuangbai county was planned for part of the peafowl’s remaining range and Beijing-based Friends of Nature launched a court case in 2017 to have it stopped.
Since the case was first brought to court, the builder of the hydropower dam has shelved the project, a rare instance in China of a public interest lawsuit preventing damage rather than seeking redress for harm done.
In its decision handed down on Thursday, the higher court agreed that the dam project would pose “grave risks” to the key habitat of the peafowl as well as the region’s rainforest ecosystem.