A timber plantation company is illegally clearing one of Indonesia’s last coastal peat swamp forests, a carbon reservoir and biodiversity hotspot home to hundreds of endangered orangutans, say observers who…
This week in Sumatra at a rare congress of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, thousands of tribal representatives from every corner of Indonesia will gather to determine the future…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — The governor-elect of Aceh province said he would revoke a proposal to drill for geothermal energy and build a power plant in the heart of Sumatra’s…
Indonesia’s highest court on Thursday ordered President Joko Widodo’s administration to hand over detailed maps of land on which oil palm companies have been licensed to operate, adding momentum to…
JAKARTA — One of the main coral reefs at Raja Ampat, an Indonesian island chain home to perhaps the world's richest marine biodiversity, was severely damaged last week when a…
Greenpeace will appeal a Jakarta court’s ruling against its freedom of information request directed at the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, setting up an encounter between the NGO and…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Sumatra is haunted by a raft of environmental problems. There are the annual fires that burn across the island’s vast peat swamp zones, which have been widely…
Located on the Siretsy river delta in Papua’s Asmat district is the picturesque hamlet of Yepem, the 655 residents of this coastal enclave on the shore of the Arafura Sea…
Europe’s largest bank has published a new “no deforestation” policy in what environmental campaigners have dubbed a “first step” towards sustainable palm oil finance, which they urge other major creditors…
The morning after a rainy night, mist enshrouds the lush canopy of the forest at Bawan village. This 1,453-hectare hillock packed with high-value timber sits on the edge of the…
Indonesian police arrested five fishermen last week for trafficking 38 sea turtles from an important nesting site in the archipelago country’s eastern waters. Six of the turtles were dead. The…
KALAODI, Indonesia — August through September is clove harvest season here in this corner of the Maluku Islands. The scent of clove flowers pierces the air over the winding, precipitous…
On Jan. 1, 2017, the world’s largest association for ethical palm oil production came to a decision that, if implemented, will allow the Kapa community of West Sumatra, Indonesia, to…
During 74 days in late 2009, a leak in the Montara offshore drilling platform gushed tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea, a body of water…
JAKARTA — Six weeks after the last of the Bukit Duri evictees moved into their new dwellings here in the Indonesian capital, the atmosphere was friendly but painful. Some tenants…
In the Cikepuh area of Indonesia’s most-populated island of Java, leopards vanished long ago. Or so people thought. This week, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry announced that hidden…
A recent audit of a leading pulp and paper manufacturer in Indonesia has highlighted a significant gap in its sustainability policy, which the company says it is now working to…
Made by human hands, thousands of floating structures that attract fish speckle Indonesian waters throughout the archipelago. Some drift. Some stand anchored to the ocean bottom. These fish aggregating devices —…
JAKARTA — When he stood for president in 2014, Joko Widodo promised to give communities living in or near Indonesia’s vast “forest zone” greater control over 12.7 million hectares of…
In the summer of 2016, two of the world's largest producers of palm oil, which is found in everything from lipstick to margarine, lost the ability to market what they sold…
On a cloudless September morning in the Central Javan hamlet of Pandansari, the coastal air drips with mist and the clamor of cawing seagulls. Forty-five-year-old Mashadi, who like many Indonesians…
On the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, verdant bamboo groves and thickets of tall mahogany and teak trees today carpet once bare hills. The young forest is the handiwork of…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia --- The son of a local parliament chief has been named a suspect over illegal land clearing in the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve, a heavily protected area…
Twenty nonprofits and investor groups released on Tuesday a set of reporting guidelines for palm oil firms who have pledged to operate responsibly and transparently. Adherence to the guidelines would…
President Donald J. Trump signed two executive orders Tuesday to allow the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects to move forward. The pen strokes reversed the course of former…
International and Indonesian NGOs are calling on the country’s largest paper company to stop using drained peat swamps for industrial agriculture. The practice, which relies on drying out the waterlogged…
The Indonesian government is going to the Supreme Court over an NGO’s freedom of information request for detailed maps of land on which oil palm companies have been licensed to…
A “fire economy” has emerged in Indonesia in which the blazes tearing through the country’s land and forests, driven largely by the global demand for palm oil, are lining the…
JAKARTA — The archipelagic country of Indonesia has revised upward the official count of its islands, from 13,466 to 14,572. The former figure was submitted in 2012 to the last UN…
Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia - 13 November 2016. We drive to Samarinda, the riverside capital of East Kalimantan Province in Indonesian Borneo, on a cloudy but warm day. Our boat,…