
Articles by Tommy Apriando
Tommy Apriando is an investigative reporter based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He is a regular contributor for Mongabay, an environmental media website and has involved in several investigative reporting project with Tempo, an independent media in Jakarta. In 2018, Tommy exposed corrupt practices by coal mine companies in East Kalimantan that abandoned their mining pit after operation. The open pit caused at least 33 children dead, most were drowned in the hole.
In 2019, Tommy was also involved as videographer and researcher for the viral documentary film “Sexy Killers”. The documentary focuses on coal mining in Indonesia and its impact for the environment. One month after the launch, the film has already reached 26 million viewers and growing.


In Indonesia’s coal heartland, jaded voters weigh the ‘same old’ candidates

Coal company fined 2 billion rupiah for illegal waste dumping in Borneo

Activists seek protection for Indonesia’s karst amid building boom pressure

Who owns Indonesia’s deadly abandoned coal mines?
Farmers fall short in legal challenge to Java cement plant
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Deforestation intensifies in northern Malaysia’s most important water catchment
- Authorities and Yobin communities clash as deforestation spikes in Indian national park
- Mennonite colony builds bridge, clears forest in Bolivian protected areas
- Satellites show deforestation surging in Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park

Oceans
- Amid haggling over deep-sea mining rules, chorus of skepticism grows louder
- Sea life may downsize with ocean warming — bringing challenging impacts
- In Japanese waters, a newly described anemone lives on the back of a hermit crab
- ‘We’ve got to help the oceans to help us’: Q&A with deep-sea explorer Dawn Wright

Amazon Conservation
- Brazil’s new deforestation data board sparks fear of censorship of forest loss, fires
- First-of-its-kind freshwater mangroves discovered in Brazil’s Amazon Delta
- Swiss pledge to stop illegal gold imports from Brazil Indigenous reserves
- At 30, Brazil’s Yanomami reserve is beset by mining, malaria and mercury

Land rights and extractives
- Organized crime drives violence and deforestation in the Amazon, study shows
- Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- Displaced by a dam, women defenders fight for their land rights in Colombia
- Amazonian communities in Peru try to keep oil-rich Block 64 in their own hands

Endangered Environmentalists
- Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- Scientists call for end to violence against Amazon communities, environmental defenders
- Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- In Brazil, an Indigenous land defender’s unsolved killing is the deadly norm

Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time

Conservation Effectiveness
- Nepal was supposed to double its tiger population since 2010. It tripled it
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)

Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
