JAKARTA — Deforestation for oil palm plantations continues unabated at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, likely driven by new processing mills that in turn may ultimately…
Fresh research published in early 2024 continues to uncover the true cost on biodiversity, the economy and public health triggered by unprecedented wildfires that swept Australia in late 2019 and…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Emergency workers and community firefighters battled isolated fires in Sumatra’s Riau province in late February as the onset of the region’s first dry season of 2024 sparked…
It was supposed to be a major milestone, back in 2014, when hundreds of governments and companies came together to sign the New York Declaration on Forests, aimed at eliminating…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Almost two years after a joint Mongabay investigation revealed systemic failure by Indonesia’s plantation industry to share gains with community farmers, countless small farmers have yet to…
For 12 years, primatologist Nadine Ruppert and her colleagues have had one recurring task on their calendar: tagging along with a group of southern pig-tailed macaques in Segari, Peninsular Malaysia,…
JAKARTA — Deforestation by the palm oil industry in Indonesia increased in 2023 for the second year in a row, bucking a decade of gradual decline, according to an analysis…
As countries around the world begin to either propose or enforce zero-deforestation regulations, companies are coming under growing pressure to prove that their products are free of deforestation. But this…
JAKARTA — Land conflicts nearly doubled under the administration of Indonesia’s current president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, compared with his predecessor, driven largely by his prioritization of investors and infrastructure projects…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian palm oil company that dropped a lawsuit against a fire expert whose testimony led to its being fined is suing a second time, in what observers…
JAKARTA — Fires razed nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of lands and forests in Indonesia in 2023, as the country suffered from unusually scorching weather due to El…
Mario Rene Xol used to enjoy life in Aldea Tierra Negra, an Indigenous village bordering the Lachuá-Ik'bolay Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) in northeastern Guatemala. Since the arrival of palm oil…
BATUTEGI FOREST, Indonesia — Like millions of small farmers across Indonesia, Sri Atmiatun’s family has shouldered higher fertilizer prices, cost-of-living hikes, and increasingly extreme weather in recent years. The river…
JAKARTA — Since its inception in 2017, the Jakarta-based Sustainable District Association, or LTKL, has brought together district governments and other stakeholders to take collective action toward greater sustainability, mainly…
Ten years ago this month, I stood with the CEO of Asia’s biggest agribusiness, Wilmar International, to announce the company’s new No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy. It banned…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have slammed one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producers for a report that they say glosses over its alleged violations and ignores concerns raised by local…
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost South Papua province have lambasted a court’s decision to reject their lawsuit that seeks to overturn an environmental permit for a palm oil…
Situated in western Nigeria, some 70 kilometers (113 miles) east of Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos, Oluwa Forest Reserve is facing severe pressure from smallholder farmers and big plantations. On…
JAKARTA — When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, kicked off the second day of its annual roundtable conference on Nov.…
Plonked between the formidable Owen Stanley mountains to its west and the Solomon Sea to the east lies Oro, a remote province in Papua New Guinea east of the capital…
One of the world’s largest palm oil companies appears to have overseen a network of companies responsible for deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares, according to a new investigation…
JAKARTA — A palm oil company in Indonesia has finally started paying off a $23 million fine for burning an important Sumatran orangutan habitat more than a decade ago, highlighting…
JAKARTA — Activists have reported four companies — two industrial forest firms and two palm oil firms — to the local police over fires in their concessions in Central Kalimantan…
JAKARTA — An Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo that has waged a decades-long legal battle against a palm oil giant has slammed a decision to absolve the company of allegations…
Indonesia’s is the world’s top palm oil producer, but the industry has long been associated with environmental ills such as deforestation and habitat destruction, with oil palm plantation expansion accounting…
PANGKALANBUN, Indonesia — An employee of a palm oil company sanctioned by Indonesia’s Supreme Court in July over wildfires was killed in late September while fighting a major fire in…
BALIKPAPAN, Indonesia — The deforestation rate has surged in a key habitat for critically endangered orangutans in Indonesian Borneo, with an area of forest 40 times the size of New…
Home to iconic, threatened wildlife and extraordinary biodiversity, Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park is continuing to crumble. Satellite data and imagery show deforestation jumped yet again in 2022 — with…