Articles by Basten Gokkon

JAKARTA — When the Indonesian government took a controlling stake in the operator of one of the world’s richest gold mines at the end of 2018, proponents hailed the move…

JAKARTA — When Indonesian authorities seized a notorious fishing boat last April carrying 30 kilometers (18 miles) of illegal gillnets, they found they had essentially caught a ghost. The STS-50…

“I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces of puzzle scattered all over the place. If you look at the whole picture it…

JAKARTA — Four months after activists in Bali celebrated what they believed was the end of a controversial plan to develop part of the island’s mangrove-rich Benoa Bay, the scheme…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has thrown out a lawsuit against an environmental expert whose testimony led to the conviction of a governor in a mining scandal. Basuki Wasis, an…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has published a long-awaited map that, for the first time, unifies all land-use data from a host of disparate sources. The fractured nature of the…

JAKARTA — Conservationists have captured a wild Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesian Borneo and relocated it to a breeding center — a key step toward saving the critically endangered species. The…

Women of childbearing age from small-island states and countries have been found to have toxic levels of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that can harm unborn children, a new report shows.…

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — In a bid to beef up fisheries security, Panama and Namibia have announced their intentions to make information on the location of fishing boats in their…

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — The Indonesian government is set to make consumer goods manufacturers more responsible for managing the waste from their product packaging, in a bid to tackle one…

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Global participants in the fifth Our Ocean Conference have pledged the highest amount of funding yet for new initiatives and commitments on the protection of a…

JAKARTA — Less than a decade after the world was introduced to the latest species of Asian leaf-warblers, a new songbird of that group has now been described by scientists.…

JAKARTA — A new decree from Indonesian authorities drops five bird species from a newly expanded list of protected wildlife, and potentially sets the stage for more to follow by…

JAKARTA — Conservationists have underestimated the combined impact of deforestation and capture when assessing the threat to Southeast Asia’s bird populations — a one-two punch that a new report warns…

JAKARTA — Hopes for a long-awaited collaboration between Indonesia and Malaysia to breed the near-extinct Sumatran rhino are fading fast, as the last of the species languish amid government inaction.…

JAKARTA — The Jakarta administration says it has finally pulled the plug on a $40 billion land reclamation project pushed by the Indonesian government off the coast of the nation’s…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has dropped three popular songbirds from a new list of protected species, amid pressure from owners and breeders. The white-rumped shama (Kittacincla malabarica), the Javan…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s top court is reviewing a lawsuit filed in 2016 by environmental activists calling on the government to pass regulations on forest fires, as the dry season ushers…

JAKARTA — Presidential candidates in Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest span of tropical rainforest, will have to address the issues of environmental protection and management in upcoming debates, according…

JAKARTA — Locals and activists have denounced plans to build tourism infrastructure in Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, a string of sun-kissed islands best known for their resident giant lizards. Developers…