Articles by Hans Nicholas Jong

JAKARTA — A new analysis has found a Switzerland-sized area of tropical peatland in Indonesia is at high risk of fire. More than half of the 3.8 million hectares (9.4…

JAKARTA — Recent statements by top Indonesian officials have climate activists questioning the country’s commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. At an event in Jakarta…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is on a spree of building coal-fired power plants for industry, which will keep the country addicted to the fossil fuel for the foreseeable future, regardless of…

JAKARTA — A new foundation has been established to support Indonesian farmers in protecting forests and selling their sustainably produced products to the global market. The foundation, called the Farmers…

Joseph D’Cruz has more than 20 years of experience in sustainability, having worked for various international organizations like the United Nations Development Programme and the World Economic Forum, on issues…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a $61 million fine against an oil palm company over massive fires on its plantation that razed an area seven times the size…

JAKARTA — Major investors continue to sour on a hydropower project being built in an orangutan habitat in Indonesia, with the powerful Norwegian state pension fund the latest to call…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans this year to recognize community claims to ancestral forests in the Sumatran province of Aceh for the first time in history. The Ministry of…

JAKARTA — Only a fifth of Indonesian palm oil companies are compliant with a requirement to allocate part of their land to smallholder farmers, according to official data. The government’s…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has justified a sweeping amnesty for millions of hectares of oil palm plantations established illegally in forest areas, saying there are so many of them…

JAKARTA — Indonesian officials say the country’s deforestation rate continued to decline for the third year running, hitting a historical low in 2021-2022. But claims of an improving trend are…

JAKARTA — Singapore-based pulp and paper giant Royal Golden Eagle is linked to deforestation in Indonesia despite having a no-deforestation policy since 2015, an investigative report says. RGE is one…

JAKARTA — Indonesia burned more coal in 2022 than any other year, a preliminary analysis shows, putting the country on track to become one of the largest carbon emitters from…

JAKARTA — The tropics lost 10% more primary rainforest in 2022 than in 2021, as forest loss in deforestation hotspots like Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continued…

JAKARTA — There’s been renewed scrutiny of the infrastructure being built for Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo following the sighting of a critically endangered orangutan crossing…

JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged three major palm oil companies in connection with a cooking oil shortage that rocked the world’s top producer of palm oil. The Attorney General’s…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s largest coal miner, PT Adaro Energy, faces claims of greenwashing over its plan to build coal-fired power plants on the island of Borneo to provide electricity for…

JAKARTA — Reports of human rights violations continue to mount around a major tourism development on the Indonesian island of Lombok, two years since the United Nations first flagged problems…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke hundreds of logging, plantation and mining permits across the country is marred with irregularities including companies continuing to operate or engage in…

JAKARTA — Most peatlands in Indonesia that need protection are currently not protected, a new study has found. It identifies 5.65 million hectares (13.96 million acres) of peatlands — an…

JAKARTA — Subsidiaries of some of the world’s biggest palm oil companies have been found guilty by Indonesia’s anticompetition watchdog of restricting sales of cooking oil amid acute shortages last…

JAKARTA — Top officials from Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s biggest palm oil producers, will meet European Union policymakers in Brussels amid a diplomatic standoff over a new deforestation rule…

JAKARTA — Suryani grew up in a family of farmers on the island of Java in Indonesia. Her parents are members of a farmer’s union called SPP. The land they…

JAKARTA — A government audit on Indonesia's palm oil industry found that 9 million hectares (22.2 million acres) of concession holders — an area three times the size of Belgium…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has made strides in developing its plantation industry, catapulting the country into the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Its sprawling plantations produce more than half of…

JAKARTA — As the European Union is set to adopt a landmark regulation that prohibits companies from trading commodities from deforested areas and illegal sources, the proposed law continues to…

JAKARTA — Illegal oil palm plantations spanning an area one and a half times the size of London have been amnestied under an Indonesian government program that critics say incentivizes…

JAKARTA — The combination of weak antigraft policies, lack of transparency, revolving-door politics, and the prevalence of politically exposed persons within companies makes Indonesia’s palm oil industry highly prone to…

JAKARTA — When Indonesia embarked on its Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s, it cleared vast swaths of forest for farmland, mostly in the peatlands of Borneo — only to…

JAKARTA — When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With…