Smoke from the catastrophic 2019-20 Australian bushfires may have tipped the planet into a La Niña climate phenomenon lasting almost three years, according to new research published May 10 in…
Palm oil tycoon Surya Darmadi began trial in Jakarta on Thursday over an alleged corruption scheme that deforested tens of thousands of hectares on the island of Sumatra. "He is…
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…
In the wake of last year’s devastating forest fires, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration forbid agribusinesses from replanting the desiccated peatlands that had gone up in flames during the disaster.…
A crucial new government regulation on peatland management in Indonesia is spurring debate over whether the country is going far enough to prevent a repeat of last year’s disastrous forest…
The father of a little girl who died during Indonesia’s 2015 fire and haze crisis testified on Thursday as part of a legal challenge to the police’s closing of cases…
Indonesia’s peat restoration agency is advocating for greater foreign investment to fill an expected funding shortfall in the government's plan to rehabilitate more than 2 million hectares of peat across…
The health ministries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have played down a study by Harvard and Columbia universities estimating a mean of more than 100,000 premature deaths resulting from the…
A NASA satellite detected 140 hotspots in West Kalimantan on Monday as smallholders in the province continued to burn land for agriculture, Indonesia’s disaster management agency said on Tuesday. Data…
Two Indonesian military commanders in Sumatra said this week that they were seeing more fires started at night and on the weekend in order to avoid the military's more frequent…
Pulp and paper supplier PT Bumi Mekar Hijau has been declared guilty of causing fires in South Sumatra by an appeals court in the Indonesian province, reversing a decision that…
Singapore’s National Environment Agency said on Friday it expected air quality to remain poor into the weekend as Indonesian disaster management officials cautioned that wildfires in Sumatra and Kalimantan could…
The Indonesian parliament will form a task force to look into the cancelling of investigations against 15 companies alleged to be complicit in fires in Riau, the country’s top palm oil…
Air quality in Indonesia and peninsular Malaysia declined this week as prevailing southwesterly winds continued to blow smog over the water that separates the two countries. “Smoke from forest fires…
On July 23 the local police headquarters in the Sumatran province of Riau released SP3 notices related to 15 companies that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had listed in…
Satellites on Wednesday recorded 145 fire-linked hotspots over Indonesia’s main western island of Sumatra, down from 245 on Sunday, according to the country’s disaster management agency. It’s a far cry…
The prospects for greater international collaboration in the effort to prevent another Southeast Asian haze crisis hit a bump in the road this week, with Jakarta taking umbrage at Singapore’s threat…
Environmental groups have raised concerns that Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s planned moratorium on new oil palm and mining concessions will have limited impact without hawkish enforcement by local governments…
Struck early this year by the annual haze scourge, Malaysia has proposed to amend the Environmental Protection Act so that the state can seize badly burning land, often set alight by…
A major heatwave caused by the ongoing El Niño weather phenomenon continued across Malaysia this week after fires and haze pollution damaged air quality and sent temperatures soaring as high…
Smog from forest fires and hotspots continued to threaten air quality in parts of Indonesia's Sumatra on Friday as local authorities waited for the mid-April rainy season to arrive. The…
Local governments, environmental agencies, emergency services and the military are working across Indonesia’s fire-prone areas as President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo tries to minimize this year’s haze in what could be…
The number of hotspots across Indonesia's forests and peatlands increased to 76 across Kalimantan and Sumatra on Monday as authorities prepared for elevated risks of widespread fires in the coming…
The government of Norway announced on Wednesday it would continue its environmental funding partnership with Indonesia, offering $50 million to support the archipelago’s newly created Peat Restoration Agency. “This is…
Indonesia will form a government agency overseen directly by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to manage what could be an unprecedented restoration of the archipelago’s peatlands following this year’s devastating wildfires.…
Indonesia is under pressure to properly enforce sweeping land-management reforms to improve its record on devastating wildfires with less than a week to crucial climate talks in Paris. “As a global…
The government of Riau province will drop its official state of emergency at the end of the month in the latest evidence that local governments are winding down their anti-haze…
The Indonesian government has yet to provide compensation to low-income families affected by smoke pollution from the archipelago’s wildfire disaster because of bureaucratic delays, a government minister said over the…
The Indonesian military said on Thursday conditions in South Sumatra had improved but that it was not yet time to withdraw soldiers seconded to firefighting efforts in more remote parts…
Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla again blamed the wind for the regional haze crisis during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on Tuesday in the Philippines. Kalla’s comments come months after…