BERLIN: US electric car giant Tesla began clearing forest for its first European “Gigafactory” near Berlin, and is now racing against the clock to rehouse ants, birds and hibernating bats.

Workers have started clearing a 92-hectare (227-acre) area of forest at the site in Gruenheide in Brandenburg state after Tesla received the green light from authorities last month.

But after concerns from environmentalists, Tesla has announced measures to relocate wildlife from the affected area, according to reports in various German media this week.

The company will have to relocate “forest ants, reptiles and five bats”, Tagesspiegel daily wrote.

According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, numerous ant colonies would be dug out with “shovels and little diggers” and relocated way from the plot.

According to local media, the company has also promised to hang 400 nesting boxes in the area, as deforestation will rob a number of birds of their homes.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2020