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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/rehabilitation/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:03:24 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Rehabilitation</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/rehabilitation/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Flames reach edge of orangutan rehabilitation center, with fire season set to intensify</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/flames-reach-edge-of-orangutan-rehabilitation-center-with-fire-season-set-to-intensify/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/flames-reach-edge-of-orangutan-rehabilitation-center-with-fire-season-set-to-intensify/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Aug 2026 10:41:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/07103831/Kebakaran-Rangkong-22-July_20260722_-MUFID_0434-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325527</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Extreme Weather, Fires, Global Environmental Crisis, Great Apes, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Mammals, Orangutans, Primates, Rehabilitation, Wildlife, and Wildlife Rehabilitation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A wildfire that reached the edge of an orangutan rehabilitation center in western Borneo is highlighting how Indonesia&#8217;s intensifying fire season threatens not just forests and wildlife, but also the conservation work taking place within them. The fire stopped just short of the facility run by the nonprofit organization YIARI, where more than [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A wildfire that reached the edge of an orangutan rehabilitation center in western Borneo is highlighting how Indonesia&#8217;s intensifying fire season threatens not just forests and wildlife, but also the conservation work taking place within them. The fire stopped just short of the facility run by the nonprofit organization YIARI, where more than 60 critically endangered Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are undergoing rehabilitation after being rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and habitat loss. The fire broke out on July 22 about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the center in Sungai Awan Kiri village, Ketapang district, West Kalimantan province. Thick smoke blanketed the area as nearly 100 personnel from government agencies, the military, police and YIARI fought for hours to stop the flames before they reached the facility. &#8220;The fire reached the boundary of the rehabilitation center&#8217;s land,&#8221; YIARI CEO Karmele Llano Sánchez told Mongabay. Aerial view of the fire that broke out on July 22, 2026, about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from YIARI&#8217;s orangutan rehabilitation center in Sungai Awan Kiri village, Ketapang district, West Kalimantan province. Image courtesy of YIARI. She said the incident highlighted the importance of being prepared for fires. “If we had not responded quickly, part of our rehabilitation center might already have been destroyed by the fire,” Llano Sánchez said. Satellite imagery of the fire that broke out on July 22, 2026, about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from YIARI&#8217;s orangutan rehabilitation center in Sungai Awan Kiri village, Ketapang district, West Kalimantan province. Red&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/flames-reach-edge-of-orangutan-rehabilitation-center-with-fire-season-set-to-intensify/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/flames-reach-edge-of-orangutan-rehabilitation-center-with-fire-season-set-to-intensify/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325527</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Updated standards make the case for restoration: ‘We have to create uplift&#8217;</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/updated-standards-make-the-case-for-restoration-we-have-to-create-uplift/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/updated-standards-make-the-case-for-restoration-we-have-to-create-uplift/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jul 2026 22:33:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/01215503/DSC_4944-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322279</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Business, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Landscape Restoration, Rehabilitation, Research, Restoration, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Society for Ecological Restoration, a U.S.-based conservation organization, published an updated set of standards and principles for restoring ecosystems on June 23, the third edition of the volume since 2016. Back then, the idea was to develop a way of thinking about and carrying out restoration that avoided some of the damage caused by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Society for Ecological Restoration, a U.S.-based conservation organization, published an updated set of standards and principles for restoring ecosystems on June 23, the third edition of the volume since 2016. Back then, the idea was to develop a way of thinking about and carrying out restoration that avoided some of the damage caused by projects focused on a narrowly defined target, says lead author George Gann. For example, enhancing carbon storage in forests could lead to monoculture tree plantations instead of productive habitats for biodiversity-rich ecosystems. The 2026 version of the manual also asserts do-no-harm principles and the importance of conserving native ecosystems, just as the first did in 2016. &#8220;But now we have to do more,&#8221; says Gann, international policy lead at the Society for Ecological Restoration. &#8220;We can&#8217;t just avoid collateral damage. We have to actually create recovery. We have to create &#8220;uplift&#8221; for biodiversity. Sapling planting in the Dering-Dibru Saikhowa Elephant Corridor in India. Image courtesy of Shiekh Marifatul Haq/Wildlife Trust of India. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in 2022, sets the goal of restoring 30% of all degraded ecosystems by 2030, and the United Nations has tagged 2021-2030 the &#8220;decade on restoration.&#8221; The standards and principles are specific, providing a set of tools for designing, implementing, and monitoring restoration work. At the same time, they&#8217;re &#8220;generic,&#8221; the authors note, allowing their application across diverse ecosystems facing different pathways to restoration. &#8220;These standards don&#8217;t tell you how to restore grasslands or mangroves,&#8221; Gann says. &#8220;They&#8217;re&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/updated-standards-make-the-case-for-restoration-we-have-to-create-uplift/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/updated-standards-make-the-case-for-restoration-we-have-to-create-uplift/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322279</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Environmental group intervenes in lawsuit to help orangutans, tigers in Indonesia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/environmental-group-intervenes-in-lawsuit-to-help-orangutans-tigers-in-indonesia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/environmental-group-intervenes-in-lawsuit-to-help-orangutans-tigers-in-indonesia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2026 13:08:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/03/12041811/Orangutan_Tapanuli_Anakan-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320997</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, North Sumatra, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Deforestation, Disasters, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Recovery, Great Apes, Landscape Restoration, Law, Law Enforcement, Orangutans, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s oldest and largest environmental group, Walhi, has formally intervened in an environmental lawsuit filed by the government against a major logging company, arguing the government’s case fails to account for the full extent of ecological damage allegedly caused by the company’s operations. Walhi filed the intervention on May 20, 2026, in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s oldest and largest environmental group, Walhi, has formally intervened in an environmental lawsuit filed by the government against a major logging company, arguing the government’s case fails to account for the full extent of ecological damage allegedly caused by the company’s operations. Walhi filed the intervention on May 20, 2026, in the Medan District Court, where the environment ministry is seeking 3.89 trillion rupiah ($214 million) in damages and environmental restoration measures against pulpwood plantation operator PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL). The environmental group is not arguing that the ministry’s damages claim is too small. Instead, it says the lawsuit overlooks key ecological impacts, such as critical orangutan and tiger habitats, that should also be addressed through court-ordered restoration. In January 2026, the environment ministry filed lawsuits against six companies over alleged damage to watersheds in North Sumatra province, which the government says contributed to the floods and landslides that struck the region in late November 2025 following cyclone-driven storms across Sumatra. The government also announced the revocation of the permits for TPL and 27 other companies in January 2026. TPL later disclosed to investors that it had received a forestry ministry decree dated Jan. 26 formally revoking its forest-use license, and that it had subsequently ceased forest-use activities within its concession. The floods and landslides struck three provinces on the island of Sumatra, including North Sumatra, and claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people. In its lawsuit against TPL, the environment ministry identified 1,261.5 hectares&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/environmental-group-intervenes-in-lawsuit-to-help-orangutans-tigers-in-indonesia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/environmental-group-intervenes-in-lawsuit-to-help-orangutans-tigers-in-indonesia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320997</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In eastern Indonesia, communities revive customary systems to protect the seas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-eastern-indonesia-communities-revive-customary-systems-to-protect-the-seas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-eastern-indonesia-communities-revive-customary-systems-to-protect-the-seas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2026 11:19:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/13111549/Memanen-kepiting-di-hutan-mangrove-Desa-Ambelang-Banggai-Kepulauankredit_-Arise-IndonesiaJPG-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319302</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, South Sulawesi, Southeast Asia, Southeast Sulawesi, and Sulawesi]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Aquaculture, Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Fish, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Landscape Restoration, Mangroves, Marine, Marine Conservation, Rehabilitation, and Restoration]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — On small islands across eastern Indonesia, coastal communities are reviving customary rules, seasonal fishing closures, turtle protection and mangrove stewardship to protect marine ecosystems threatened by blast fishing, turtle hunting and habitat loss. Their efforts are the focus of Jejak Wallacea, a new documentary produced by Burung Indonesia and Arise! Indonesia as part [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — On small islands across eastern Indonesia, coastal communities are reviving customary rules, seasonal fishing closures, turtle protection and mangrove stewardship to protect marine ecosystems threatened by blast fishing, turtle hunting and habitat loss. Their efforts are the focus of Jejak Wallacea, a new documentary produced by Burung Indonesia and Arise! Indonesia as part of the Wallacea Partnership Program II, a conservation initiative supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. The film follows communities in the provinces of East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi that use locally rooted systems to manage coastal ecosystems. These include customary sanctions, community patrols, octopus fishing closures, coral reef restoration, turtle hatcheries and mangrove-based livelihoods. For Burung Indonesia, the local affiliate of BirdLife International, the film is also an attempt to show that conservation in the eastern Indonesian islands that make up the Wallacea region, one of the world’s richest marine biodiversity regions, cannot depend only on formal protected areas or top-down enforcement. “The Wallacea Partnership Program is essentially aimed at strengthening the capacity of civil society in site-level conservation,” said Angga Yoga, a terrestrial program specialist at Burung Indonesia. “That’s why the NGOs are not very visible in the film, because the communities themselves are the ones we empower.” Angga contrasted the approach with more exclusionary conservation models, saying the initiatives featured in the film were designed by communities themselves through customary systems rather than imposed mainly through prohibitions. “Instead, it works through customary systems, meaning the communities themselves&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-eastern-indonesia-communities-revive-customary-systems-to-protect-the-seas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-eastern-indonesia-communities-revive-customary-systems-to-protect-the-seas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319302</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationists fear fires could erase years of orangutan habitat recovery</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 May 2026 10:34:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/02083516/sabah_3982-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318990</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, El Nino, Fires, Forests, Great Apes, Landscape Restoration, Mammals, Orangutans, Peatlands, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Fires have burned part of a decade-long orangutan habitat restoration site in Indonesian Borneo, raising fears among conservationists that another severe fire season could wipe out years of recovery efforts before the dry season has even fully begun. A decade ago, Yayasan IAR Indonesia (YIARI), the Indonesian affiliate of International Animal Rescue, began [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Fires have burned part of a decade-long orangutan habitat restoration site in Indonesian Borneo, raising fears among conservationists that another severe fire season could wipe out years of recovery efforts before the dry season has even fully begun. A decade ago, Yayasan IAR Indonesia (YIARI), the Indonesian affiliate of International Animal Rescue, began restoring degraded orangutan habitat in Pematang Gadung village in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan province, after villagers repeatedly reported orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) entering farms and eating crops. The incursions were driven by habitat loss. Large parts of the surrounding forest had already been degraded, including during Indonesia’s catastrophic 2015 fire season, when more than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of land in and around the village were burned. Since then, YIARI, together with the government and local communities, have worked to restore the damaged landscape by planting trees that provide food for orangutans, with the hope that if enough food is available in the forest, the critically endangered apes will stop venturing into farmland. As of early 2026, the group had restored around 300 hectares (740 acres) with 150,000 trees, including fruit-bearing species favored by orangutans. Local community members planting trees at the restoration site of orangutan habitat in Pematang Gadung village in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan. Image courtesy of YIARI. The work is especially important because the remaining orangutan habitat in the area has become increasingly fragmented. Illegal gold mining operations now surround much of the forest, leaving wildlife confined to shrinking patches of habitat. “Once&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318990</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Thousands of peat fires flare across Indonesia despite rainy season</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/thousands-of-peat-fires-flare-across-indonesia-despite-rainy-season/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/thousands-of-peat-fires-flare-across-indonesia-despite-rainy-season/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Feb 2026 06:40:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/28140328/firefighter-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314232</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Aceh, Asia, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Air Pollution, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Climate, Climate Change, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, Forestry, Forests, Health, Peatlands, Planetary Health, Plantations, Pollution, Public Health, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Satellite imagery recorded more than 5,000 fire hotspots on peatlands across Indonesia in January, despite the fact that much of the country remains firmly in the grip of the rainy season. Independent watchdog Pantau Gambut identified 5,490 hotspots within peatlands, perennially waterlogged ecosystems that store massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Official monitoring also [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Satellite imagery recorded more than 5,000 fire hotspots on peatlands across Indonesia in January, despite the fact that much of the country remains firmly in the grip of the rainy season. Independent watchdog Pantau Gambut identified 5,490 hotspots within peatlands, perennially waterlogged ecosystems that store massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Official monitoring also recorded an increase in fire hotspots, though using a different reporting method. Based on NASA Terra/Aqua satellite data, the Ministry of Forestry reported 110 hotspots nationwide in January 2026, up from 29 in January 2025 and 18 in December 2025. The two figures aren’t directly comparable, as they rely on different spatial filters and detection criteria. Pantau Gambut said the rise it recorded is concerning because it’s occurring during the wet season, which has been so intense this time around that it led to massive flooding in Sumatra in late 2025. The spike suggests fire risk in peat landscapes is no longer confined to the traditional dry season, but increasingly driven by degraded hydrology and land-use pressures, said Pantau Gambut campaigner Putra Saptian. Peat soil, which can be several meters deep, is made up of dead vegetation that, thanks to the waterlogged conditions, is only partially decomposed. In peat-rich areas across Sumatra and Borneo, logging and plantation companies have typically dug canals to drain the peat soil in preparation for cultivation, leaving behind vast swaths of highly flammable organic matter. Pantau Gambut recorded 1,824 hotspots inside the concessions of such companies in January, or a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/thousands-of-peat-fires-flare-across-indonesia-despite-rainy-season/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/thousands-of-peat-fires-flare-across-indonesia-despite-rainy-season/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314232</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The fair costs for forest rehabilitation in Indonesia (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/the-fair-costs-for-forest-rehabilitation-in-indonesia-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/the-fair-costs-for-forest-rehabilitation-in-indonesia-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Feb 2026 13:19:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aida Greenbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/07/02134045/kalbar_drone_190836-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313621</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Land Use Change, Landscape Restoration, Plantations, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A week ago, the media reported that the Ministry of Forestry estimated the total cost of rehabilitating Indonesia’s forests and critical lands at Rp153.78 trillion, or about US$9.2 billion, over nine years, ending in 2034. The Ministry plans to rehabilitate 12 million hectares of critical land by then, including 6.3 million hectares within forest areas [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A week ago, the media reported that the Ministry of Forestry estimated the total cost of rehabilitating Indonesia’s forests and critical lands at Rp153.78 trillion, or about US$9.2 billion, over nine years, ending in 2034. The Ministry plans to rehabilitate 12 million hectares of critical land by then, including 6.3 million hectares within forest areas and 5.7 million hectares outside. On average, about 1.3 million hectares will be rehabilitated annually, requiring roughly Rp17.08 trillion in funding from the State Budget (APBN) and regional budgets. Additional financing will also depend on domestic and international cooperation, as well as commitments to watershed-area rehabilitation by holders of Forest Area Use Permits (PPKH) and Forest Utilization Business Permits (PBPH). Ecosystem restoration efforts will also be supported through carbon schemes and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It’s not yet clear where the 12 million hectares are located, how the number was derived, which indicators were used, or what their actual condition is. It’s also unclear how this overlaps with the 12.7 million hectares under the Ministry’s Social Forestry Program. In November 2024, the Forestry Minister announced his intention to develop a roadmap and strategic plan to reforest 12 million hectares of degraded forest, following a statement by the President’s Special Envoy for Climate, who said that 12.7 million hectares of damaged forest in Indonesia would be reforested at COP29 in Azerbaijan. I have not seen this roadmap made publicly available. Despite this confusion, it is critical that a large-scale forest rehabilitation program ensure transparency for the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/the-fair-costs-for-forest-rehabilitation-in-indonesia-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/the-fair-costs-for-forest-rehabilitation-in-indonesia-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313621</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia says 4 million hectares of plantation, mining lands reclaimed in crackdown</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-says-4-million-hectares-of-plantation-mining-lands-reclaimed-in-crackdown/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-says-4-million-hectares-of-plantation-mining-lands-reclaimed-in-crackdown/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jan 2026 11:43:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/04/14165901/indonesia_20152253-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312938</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Business, Conflict, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Illegal Logging, Illegal Mining, Land Conflict, Landscape Restoration, Law, Law Enforcement, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres, about the size of Switzerland) of land nationwide that had been used for plantations, mining or other activities inside areas officially designated as forest, according to the government. The ongoing crackdown — the country’s most sweeping enforcement drive to date against illegal [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres, about the size of Switzerland) of land nationwide that had been used for plantations, mining or other activities inside areas officially designated as forest, according to the government. The ongoing crackdown — the country’s most sweeping enforcement drive to date against illegal activities in forest areas — is being carried out by a task force established by President Prabowo Subianto in January 2025, involving the military, police, prosecutors and multiple ministries. Officials say the task force initially targeted 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land to seize in 2025, and thus it has exceeded its initial target by more than 400% within its first 10 months of operation. But the unprecedented scale of the seizures has also exposed unresolved questions about the data underpinning the campaign, how much of the land involved is actually oil palm, and what will happen to seized plantations and mines after enforcement. The reclaimed areas span mostly oil palm plantations as well as mining concessions — primarily nickel and coal — and conservation zones such as national parks and protected forests. Enforcement actions cited by authorities include oil palm plantations operating without proper forest-area permits, mining operations lacking approval for forest-area use, unlicensed gold mining, illegal tourism structures inside conservation areas and oil palm encroachment inside national parks. Burned land inside Tesso Nilo National Park in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Questions about the numbers The scale of the government’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-says-4-million-hectares-of-plantation-mining-lands-reclaimed-in-crackdown/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-says-4-million-hectares-of-plantation-mining-lands-reclaimed-in-crackdown/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312938</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia launches sweeping environmental audits after Sumatra flood disaster</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-launches-sweeping-environmental-audits-after-sumatra-flood-disaster/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-launches-sweeping-environmental-audits-after-sumatra-flood-disaster/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Jan 2026 10:50:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/18164313/Permukiman-hancur-akibat-banjir6-2048x1366-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312684</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Aceh, Asia, Indonesia, North Sumatra, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, and West Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Disasters, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Law, Law Enforcement, Mining, Planetary Health, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced what it describes as a sweeping, science-based effort to reassess environmental governance, zoning and corporate accountability in the wake of floods and landslides that killed more than 1,100 people across the island of Sumatra. The disasters were triggered by extreme rainfall linked to Tropical Cyclone Senyar, but government [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced what it describes as a sweeping, science-based effort to reassess environmental governance, zoning and corporate accountability in the wake of floods and landslides that killed more than 1,100 people across the island of Sumatra. The disasters were triggered by extreme rainfall linked to Tropical Cyclone Senyar, but government officials, scientists and environmental researchers say the scale of the destruction can’t be attributed to the weather alone. They point instead to long-term land-use changes — including deforestation and large-scale forest conversion — that have weakened natural buffers in Sumatra’s upland watersheds, leaving landscapes unable to absorb intense rainfall. The government has acknowledged that human-driven changes to land cover have fundamentally altered Sumatra’s landscapes, reducing their capacity to prevent severe flooding and landslides when extreme weather hits. “These changes are caused both by anthropogenic factors — such as the conversion of forest cover into non-forest areas — and by heavy rainfall, combined with the geomorphological characteristics of our soils, which are unable to adapt to these pressures,” Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said. The acknowledgment marks a significant shift in tone. Rather than treating the disasters solely as natural events, the government is now explicitly linking loss of life and environmental damage to development decisions, land-use planning and corporate activity — and signaling that permits and licenses may no longer shield companies from accountability. On Dec. 23, 2025, Hanif announced a three-pronged intervention covering Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra, the provinces most severely affected&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-launches-sweeping-environmental-audits-after-sumatra-flood-disaster/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/indonesia-launches-sweeping-environmental-audits-after-sumatra-flood-disaster/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312684</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Critics say FSC update risks weakening accountability for forest harm</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/critics-say-fsc-update-risks-weakening-accountability-for-forest-harm/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/critics-say-fsc-update-risks-weakening-accountability-for-forest-harm/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Sep 2025 07:03:32 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/31045148/GP04KSQ_Web_size-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306052</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Certification, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Pulp And Paper, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Supply Chain, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The world’s largest sustainable timber label is under fire for revising how it applies its rules on corporate accountability — a move activists say could let forestry giants long tied to deforestation and land conflicts rebrand themselves as “green.” The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies wood and paper products worldwide, confirmed to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The world’s largest sustainable timber label is under fire for revising how it applies its rules on corporate accountability — a move activists say could let forestry giants long tied to deforestation and land conflicts rebrand themselves as “green.” The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies wood and paper products worldwide, confirmed to Mongabay that it has revised its internal guidance on the scope of a company’s “corporate group.” The concept is central to the FSC’s rules because it determines how to deal with a company that’s certified if one of its uncertified subsidiaries, suppliers or affiliates is found to have committed forestry violations. The FSC’s corporate group definition is currently based on the standard of “common control” drawn up by the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi), a collaborative effort by 25 NGOs to build and scale up ethical supply chains for agricultural and forestry products. “This work considers the learnings to date on identifying and concluding the scope of the corporate group and builds on the strengths of the [AFi’s] definition,” the FSC said in a statement. “This is not the same as reviewing the definition itself.” The distinction matters because under the FSC’s Policy for Association and Remedy Framework, an entire corporate group can be held accountable for destructive practices like illegal logging, human rights abuses, or deforestation by any of its members. Under the remedy framework, firms that have lost their FSC certification, or been “disassociated,” can only return to the FSC fold if they make&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/critics-say-fsc-update-risks-weakening-accountability-for-forest-harm/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/critics-say-fsc-update-risks-weakening-accountability-for-forest-harm/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306052</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pulp and paper giant APP moves closer to regaining FSC stamp despite pending review</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/pulp-and-paper-giant-app-moves-closer-to-regaining-fsc-stamp-despite-pending-review/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/pulp-and-paper-giant-app-moves-closer-to-regaining-fsc-stamp-despite-pending-review/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Aug 2025 10:19:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/31045148/GP04KSQ_Web_size-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304616</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Jambi, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Certification, Conflict, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Plantations, Pulp And Paper, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Social Conflict, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Asia Pulp &#38; Paper, one of the world’s biggest forestry groups, has effectively been given the green light to seek ethical certification from the Forest Stewardship Council — a stamp of approval that it was stripped of 18 years ago for deforestation and other violations. In a decision announced in July, the FSC, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Asia Pulp &amp; Paper, one of the world’s biggest forestry groups, has effectively been given the green light to seek ethical certification from the Forest Stewardship Council — a stamp of approval that it was stripped of 18 years ago for deforestation and other violations. In a decision announced in July, the FSC, the world’s leading certifier of sustainable forestry practices, lifted a suspension to allow APP to resume its remedy process — a series of remedial and restorative measures for past violations that would eventually make the company eligible for FSC certification. Watchdog groups say the move caught them by surprise, especially given that a key legal review into the company’s web of corporate holdings remains unfinished. They warn this lets one of the world’s most notorious forestry firms fast-track its return to the ethical timber trade, and also exposes communities in conflict with APP-linked companies to further harm. “We were led to believe that the outcome of the legal review would inform whether APP was eligible to re-enter the remedy process,” the Forest Peoples Programme, a U.K.-based campaign group, told Mongabay. “Proceeding in advance undermines trust in the process and diminishes the credibility of the review itself.” Log yard of Sinar Mas Group/Asia Pulp and Paper&#8217;s Indah Kiat pulp&#8217;s paper mill in Riau Province, Sumatra. In 2003, a lot of the logs used by the mill was obtained by large scale clearance of natural forest. Tangled corporate web APP is the main pulp and paper arm&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/pulp-and-paper-giant-app-moves-closer-to-regaining-fsc-stamp-despite-pending-review/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304616</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Hope and frustration as Indonesia pilots FSC’s logging remedy framework</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/hope-and-frustration-as-indonesia-pilots-fscs-logging-remedy-framework/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/hope-and-frustration-as-indonesia-pilots-fscs-logging-remedy-framework/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jul 2025 10:34:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/03/04053319/Hutan-adat-Sihaporas-yang-hancur-dan-berubah-menjadi-pohon-eukaliptus-dalam-jumlah-banyak-yang-dikuasai-PT.-TPL-mengantongi-izin-konsesi-dari-pemerintah-Ayat-S-Karokaro-768x506.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302935</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, North Sumatra, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Certification, Conflict, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Logging, Pulp And Paper, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Social Conflict, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia is testing whether one of the world’s most powerful timber certifiers can deliver justice — or merely a reset — to forest communities harmed by industrial logging. At stake is the credibility of the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) first-of-its-kind “remedy framework,” an ambitious mechanism that allows logging companies stripped of certification to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia is testing whether one of the world’s most powerful timber certifiers can deliver justice — or merely a reset — to forest communities harmed by industrial logging. At stake is the credibility of the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) first-of-its-kind “remedy framework,” an ambitious mechanism that allows logging companies stripped of certification to regain it — but only if they repair the environmental and social damage they’ve caused. But early implementation has exposed cracks — particularly in how past harms are assessed. The FSC is the world’s most recognizable ethical wood certifier, whose logo of a green checkmark and tree is widely used to assure consumers of sustainable sourcing and appears on forestry products — from furniture to paper — worldwide. Under the remedy framework that was adopted in 2023, forestry companies can obtain or regain sustainability certificates if they remedy past environmental and social harms. Two of Indonesia’s largest forestry firms have entered this process, making the country a global testing ground for what could become a new model of corporate accountability, opening the door to restoring millions of hectares of forests, and bringing restitution to thousands of affected communities. FSC director-general Subhra Bhattacharjee told Mongabay that the Indonesian context will highlight the framework’s limitations and the need to customize it to local conditions, “because what works in Indonesia won&#8217;t necessarily work in another country — but the processes will.” Area of natural forest near a river cleared by PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL). Toba Pulp Lestari&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/hope-and-frustration-as-indonesia-pilots-fscs-logging-remedy-framework/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302935</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As Indonesia phases out coal, what happens to people &#038; environments left behind?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/as-indonesia-phases-out-coal-what-happens-to-people-environments-left-behind/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/as-indonesia-phases-out-coal-what-happens-to-people-environments-left-behind/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2025 15:54:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/19095441/GP0STTB7D_Medium-res-with-credit-line-1200px-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299299</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Java, Southeast Asia, and West Java]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Air Pollution, Climate Change, Coal, Energy, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Human Rights, Just Transition, Politics, Pollution, Rehabilitation, Renewable Energy, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — As Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest polluters, plans to retire its fleet of coal-fired power plants to tackle climate change, one critical question is being overlooked: What happens to the communities and environments they leave behind? An analysis by the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) found that environmental legacy impacts, such [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — As Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest polluters, plans to retire its fleet of coal-fired power plants to tackle climate change, one critical question is being overlooked: What happens to the communities and environments they leave behind? An analysis by the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) found that environmental legacy impacts, such as pollution, degraded ecosystems and lost livelihoods, are not integrated into current transition plans. Indonesia’s current regulatory framework, particularly the 2009 electricity law, does not mandate post-operation planning for coal-fired power plants. This is a stark contrast to the mining law, which obliges post-operation rehabilitation. As a result, environmental impact assessments, known as AMDALs in Indonesia, for coal plants routinely exclude post-closure recovery plans, leaving behind long-term environmental degradation and unaddressed social costs once plants are shut down. ICEL reviewed the AMDALs of six coal plants on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali and found that most lacked any mention of post-operation planning or environmental recovery measures. “What we found is that post-operation impacts assessed mostly relate to demolition dust or noise from increased truck traffic,” ICEL program deputy director Grita Anindarini said during a recent event in Jakarta. This limited focus suggests AMDALs are treating closures as construction projects, rather than as opportunities for environmental recovery and justice. This is despite a well-documented history of coal plants damaging ecosystems and disrupting livelihoods across the archipelago. In Bali, the Celukan Bawang coal-fired plant has been blamed for damaging coral reefs and coastal ecosystems, which&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/as-indonesia-phases-out-coal-what-happens-to-people-environments-left-behind/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299299</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia reforestation plan a smoke screen for agriculture project, critics say</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/indonesia-reforestation-plan-a-smoke-screen-for-agriculture-project-critics-say/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/indonesia-reforestation-plan-a-smoke-screen-for-agriculture-project-critics-say/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Dec 2024 14:46:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/04151943/Pesalat-Reforestation-Project-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=291780</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Papua, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Climate Change, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Food, food security, Politics, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — At the U.N. climate conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Indonesian government announced an ambitious plan to reforest 12.7 million hectares (31.4 million acres) of degraded land, an area 80 times the size of London. The government framed the policy as a critical move to combat climate change, as Indonesia is one of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — At the U.N. climate conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Indonesian government announced an ambitious plan to reforest 12.7 million hectares (31.4 million acres) of degraded land, an area 80 times the size of London. The government framed the policy as a critical move to combat climate change, as Indonesia is one of the world&#8217;s largest emitters of greenhouse gases from the land sector, mainly due to deforestation for agriculture. But critics argue it’s a smoke screen to offset deforestation from a massive agricultural project, raising questions about its sincerity and feasibility. Others warn the plan faces significant challenges, such as logistical hurdles. The reforestation initiative comes as part of Indonesia’s efforts to achieve its FOLU Net Sink 2030 target, which aims to turn the country’s forests into a net absorber of carbon by 2030. The reforestation initiative will help Indonesia achieve the target by significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the country’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni said. Yet government officials admitted the program is also intended to offset deforestation caused by the controversial food estate program, a mega agricultural project targeting millions of hectares for cultivation. Critics argue that this dual approach means the reforestation initiative might be more about optics than impact, which will undermine the credibility of Indonesia’s climate commitments. Natural forests, like this one in Indonesia, contain hundreds of native species that all contribute to the ecosystem services they provide. Protecting standing forests is quicker&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/indonesia-reforestation-plan-a-smoke-screen-for-agriculture-project-critics-say/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/indonesia-reforestation-plan-a-smoke-screen-for-agriculture-project-critics-say/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-291780</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>From selfies to treetops: Thai NGOs rescue and release captive gibbons</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/from-selfies-to-treetops-thai-ngos-rescue-and-release-captive-gibbons/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/from-selfies-to-treetops-thai-ngos-rescue-and-release-captive-gibbons/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Aug 2024 04:40:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Norman Bermúdez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/08190511/WFFT-10-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=285889</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Ex-situ Conservation, Gibbons, Mammals, Rehabilitation, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Rescues, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PHUKET, Thailand — The air is thick and sticky in the forest surrounding the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project center. Thanaphat Payakkaporn, head of the project, bends down to pick up the discarded shells of langsat fruits, a sign that wild gibbons have been in the area. As a series of loud, melodic whoops echo through the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PHUKET, Thailand — The air is thick and sticky in the forest surrounding the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project center. Thanaphat Payakkaporn, head of the project, bends down to pick up the discarded shells of langsat fruits, a sign that wild gibbons have been in the area. As a series of loud, melodic whoops echo through the jungle, Thanaphat  looks up at the canopy and smiles. “Bo’s son comes to visit him sometimes,” he says. Bo is a 37-year-old white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar), rescued in 1993 after being captured and kept as a pet for five years. He’s one of around 400 gibbons that the GRP, led by Thanaphat, has rescued and rehabilitated. At least 100 have been successfully released in the provinces of Chiang Mai and Phuket, where wild gibbon populations had previously been decimated by poachers. Bo’s son is one of these gibbons, but Bo himself has proved difficult to release. Despite seven attempts, he keeps returning to the center or venturing out of the forest in search of humans. He’s now a permanent resident at the rehabilitation center. Thanaphat Payakkaporn, head of the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project, uses a rope-assisted mechanism to feed the gibbons at the project&#8217;s rehabilitation center in Phuket. Image by Ana Norman Bermúdez for Mongabay. Thailand is home to four gibbon species: white-handed or lar; black-handed or agile (Hylobates agilis), pileated (Hylobates pileatus) and siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus), all now listed as endangered due to rampant poaching and habitat fragmentation in the latter half of the 20th&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/from-selfies-to-treetops-thai-ngos-rescue-and-release-captive-gibbons/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/from-selfies-to-treetops-thai-ngos-rescue-and-release-captive-gibbons/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-285889</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Water is key as study shows restoration of drained tropical peat is possible</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/water-is-key-as-study-shows-restoration-of-drained-tropical-peat-is-possible/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/water-is-key-as-study-shows-restoration-of-drained-tropical-peat-is-possible/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Jun 2024 15:52:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/06/10092215/2-100_0700-min-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=283016</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[carbon, Carbon Emissions, Climate, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Emission Reduction, Environment, Forests, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Industry, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Nature-based climate solutions, Peatlands, Plantations, Rehabilitation, Research, Restoration, Soil Carbon, Trees, Water, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — In 2015, Indonesian forestry giant Asia Pulp &#38; Paper announced it would retire thousands of hectares of its commercial timber plantation in Sumatra, with the ultimate goal of restoring the land back to the tropical peat swamp it once was. The ambitious project marked a notable shift in the forest management practices of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — In 2015, Indonesian forestry giant Asia Pulp &amp; Paper announced it would retire thousands of hectares of its commercial timber plantation in Sumatra, with the ultimate goal of restoring the land back to the tropical peat swamp it once was. The ambitious project marked a notable shift in the forest management practices of APP, which had been heavily criticized in the past for draining and clearing large swaths of carbon-rich peat forests to plant the acacia trees from which paper, packaging and many other consumer products are made. Central to APP’s effort was rewetting: the company had dug canals throughout the peat landscape to drain the waterlogged soil. Now it needed to do the reverse, blocking those same canals to allow the land to once again retain water. And it seems to have worked, according to a newly published study in the journal Scientific Reports. Nearly a decade since the start of rewetting, soil carbon emissions have gone down, while native trees have sprung up, write the international group of scientists behind the study. “We demonstrate that restoration through canal blocking has led to an enduring rise in the water table and initial recovery of the former vegetation cover through the re-establishment of native PSF [peat swamp forest] tree species,” they write. And once the canals were blocked, they add, nature required little help from humans: “The only active interventions are [i] canal blocking for moderate rewetting that avoids inundation where possible, [ii] limited local removal of existing&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/water-is-key-as-study-shows-restoration-of-drained-tropical-peat-is-possible/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/water-is-key-as-study-shows-restoration-of-drained-tropical-peat-is-possible/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-283016</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Floods set to worsen on Sumatra peat as landscape gives way</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/floods-set-to-worsen-on-sumatra-peat-as-landscape-gives-way/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/floods-set-to-worsen-on-sumatra-peat-as-landscape-gives-way/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 May 2024 02:31:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Suryadi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/29151603/Police-are-cooling-burnt-peatlands-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=282669</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Climate Change, Community Forests, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Peatlands, Plantations, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Traffic stopped gradually, then suddenly, as the new year approached around an hour’s drive out of the city of Pekanbaru here on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Within minutes, the arterial highway linking the island’s east and west coasts turned into a dark river. “The problem is complex,” said Sigit Sutikno, a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Traffic stopped gradually, then suddenly, as the new year approached around an hour’s drive out of the city of Pekanbaru here on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Within minutes, the arterial highway linking the island’s east and west coasts turned into a dark river. “The problem is complex,” said Sigit Sutikno, a peatland hydrologist at the University of Riau. “The floods will become more frequent, the impact will widen, and the duration will be longer.” Across much of Indonesia’s Riau province, motorcyclists coated in translucent ponchos scrambled under shop awnings, while young children gazed out of car windows, unaware that the tailback snaked back for tens of kilometers. Sigit said he expects extreme conditions like Riau&#8217;s New Year flood to worsen even without the aggravation of rainfall patterns caused by climate change, which will bring more frequent extreme weather events over Sumatra. Dumai, a coastal city in Riau, is prone to wildfires. Image courtesy of Walhi-Riau. Thousands were caught up in the chaos on New Year’s Eve in Riau, which Sigit attributed to the deterioration of Indonesia’s largest peatland. The province, which comprises much of Sumatra’s Malacca Strait coastline, accounts for a wider expanse of carbon-dense peatland than anywhere else in Indonesia. The country as a whole is home to around a third of the world’s tropical peat, which accumulates over thousands of years from the incomplete decomposition of plants in waterlogged marshes. Peat accounts for about 3% of land surface area around the globe, but these&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/floods-set-to-worsen-on-sumatra-peat-as-landscape-gives-way/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/floods-set-to-worsen-on-sumatra-peat-as-landscape-gives-way/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-282669</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>On foot and by drone, radio tracking helps rehabilitate pangolins in Vietnam</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/on-foot-and-by-drone-radio-tracking-helps-rehabilitate-pangolins-in-vietnam/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/on-foot-and-by-drone-radio-tracking-helps-rehabilitate-pangolins-in-vietnam/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 May 2024 14:34:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claudia Geib]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/10130532/Tran-Van-Truong-pangolin-vietnam-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=281944</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Critically Endangered Species, Drones, Endangered Species, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Illegal Trade, Mammals, Pangolins, Rehabilitation, Technology, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, Wildtech, and Zoos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When the organization Save Vietnam’s Wildlife receives a pangolin rescued from the wildlife trade, it can take months to remind the scaly, housecat-sized mammal how to be a pangolin again. After treating any diseases or injuries, SVW caretakers place the pangolin in a small, semiwild enclosure. Here they monitor the rehabilitating animals to see if [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When the organization Save Vietnam’s Wildlife receives a pangolin rescued from the wildlife trade, it can take months to remind the scaly, housecat-sized mammal how to be a pangolin again. After treating any diseases or injuries, SVW caretakers place the pangolin in a small, semiwild enclosure. Here they monitor the rehabilitating animals to see if they’re behaving the way they would in the wild: if they’re investigating tubes of bamboo filled with ants, if they’re climbing trees, and if they’re digging burrows in the soft dirt. It can take up to a year for rescued animals to start acting like wild pangolins again — a delay compounded by ongoing criminal investigations, in which the animals are evidence. But once a pangolin has been approved for release, SVW’s veterinarians might take an additional step: puncturing a hole in one of the pangolin’s fingernail-like scales and fastening on a small radio transmitter. Then they reintroduce the pangolin back to Vietnam’s forests and marshes, hoping that each animal has remembered enough to survive. For the pangolin, radio tracking offers a tremendous boon to research. These mammals are shy and nocturnal. Because they live in dense forest and burrow underground, much of their habits are still unknown. For SVW, radio tracking pangolins on foot and using a new radio telemetry-equipped drone is revealing previously unknown facets of the animals&#8217; lives, as well as refining the reintroduction process. But like many conservation organizations, their work is also limited by funding challenges. A rehabilitated pangolin being&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/05/on-foot-and-by-drone-radio-tracking-helps-rehabilitate-pangolins-in-vietnam/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-281944</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesian capital project finally gets guidelines to avoid harm to biodiversity</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/indonesian-capital-project-finally-gets-guidelines-to-avoid-harm-to-biodiversity/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/indonesian-capital-project-finally-gets-guidelines-to-avoid-harm-to-biodiversity/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Apr 2024 04:11:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/05/20094508/Proboscis-monkey-Malaysia-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=281156</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Great Apes and Indonesian Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Conflict, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Great Apes, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Indigenous Peoples, Landscape Restoration, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out what it calls a “biodiversity management master plan” amid mounting criticism of the environmental and social threats posed by the construction of the country’s new capital city in the Bornean forest. The plan, published March 26, sets out a number of action plans to preserve wildlife habitat, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out what it calls a “biodiversity management master plan” amid mounting criticism of the environmental and social threats posed by the construction of the country’s new capital city in the Bornean forest. The plan, published March 26, sets out a number of action plans to preserve wildlife habitat, protect species and restore damaged ecosystems in the new capital, known as Nusantara, through to 2029. The ultimate goal is to ensure 65% of the area of the new capital is tropical rainforest, by designating protected areas and rehabilitating degraded lands and forests. The new city’s “protected” zone spans 177,000 hectares (437,400 acres), of which only 2% is currently undisturbed natural forest. Less than a quarter is degraded or secondary forest — a legacy of logging and fires — while the rest comprises plantation and mining concessions. With such a small patch of intact forest to start from, and such a large swath of degraded land to reforest, achieving what President Joko Widodo calls a “green forest city” will be a challenge, experts say. From late 2022 until the end of 2023, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry reforested just 1,441 hectares (3,561 acres) of the Nusantara site, a miniscule fraction of the government target of reforesting 120,000 hectares (296,500 acres) until 2045. The reforestation efforts have been stumped by haphazard planting, with nonnative tree species being planted, coupled with poor planting practices and monitoring, experts found. Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo plants in the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/indonesian-capital-project-finally-gets-guidelines-to-avoid-harm-to-biodiversity/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/indonesian-capital-project-finally-gets-guidelines-to-avoid-harm-to-biodiversity/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/06/27035744/WhatsApp-Video-2023-06-14-at-14.36.51.mp4" length="2923637" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-281156</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malawi police arrest elephant poachers in Kasungu National Park</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/malawi-police-arrest-elephant-poachers-in-kasungu-national-park/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/malawi-police-arrest-elephant-poachers-in-kasungu-national-park/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Apr 2024 16:31:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/18162124/SavannahElephants_MajeteNPMalawi_PeterStewardBYNC2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=281107</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Malawi]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Mammals, National Parks, Poaching, Protected Areas, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Solutions, Wildlife, and Wildlife Rehabilitation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BLANTYRE — Police and wildlife department officials in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park in the country’s west. In July 2022, 263 elephants were translocated to the park, which forms part of a transfrontier conservation area covering 32,000 square kilometers (12,400 square miles) across Malawi and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BLANTYRE — Police and wildlife department officials in Malawi have arrested two men suspected of having killed an elephant in Kasungu National Park in the country’s west. In July 2022, 263 elephants were translocated to the park, which forms part of a transfrontier conservation area covering 32,000 square kilometers (12,400 square miles) across Malawi and Zambia. Parks authorities in the two countries, working alongside the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), have invested $8.5 million since 2017 to secure what was previously a hotspot for poaching and illegal wildlife trafficking. Police say Grave Nkhoma, 48, and Nickson Nthukwa, 50, were arrested in Kasungu district on April 11 and found in possession of 16.6 kilograms (36.6 pounds) of ivory. Residents of villages just outside the park’s boundaries informed police about two men selling elephant meat. “The community knew where they were operating from in those two weeks so they tipped the police and park officials,” said Anthony Chatama, vice chair of the Kasungu Wildlife Conservation for Community Development Association, a local community organization. “This is one role we are playing in our partnership with the government in conservation in Kasungu National Park and surrounding areas.” Joseph Kachikho, police spokesperson for Kasungu district, told Mongabay that investigators confiscated locally made weapons from the men, including a large-caliber muzzle-loaded gun that police say the two used for their poaching operations in the park. They’ve been detained pending a date to appear in court to be formally charged. Following their arrest, the two men&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/malawi-police-arrest-elephant-poachers-in-kasungu-national-park/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/malawi-police-arrest-elephant-poachers-in-kasungu-national-park/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-281107</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia to offer tax perks to companies investing in reforestation of its new capital city</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-to-offer-tax-perks-to-companies-investing-in-reforestation-of-its-new-capital-city/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-to-offer-tax-perks-to-companies-investing-in-reforestation-of-its-new-capital-city/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Feb 2024 11:09:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/17045927/Nusantara-visit-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=279046</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Coal, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Fossil Fuels, Landscape Restoration, Mining, Politics, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — As the Indonesian government embarks on a massive push to reforest the area around the country’s new capital city in Borneo, it is turning to the private sector in hopes that investors will help supply the labor and capital needed for the program. In 2022, President Joko Widodo, popularly known as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — As the Indonesian government embarks on a massive push to reforest the area around the country’s new capital city in Borneo, it is turning to the private sector in hopes that investors will help supply the labor and capital needed for the program. In 2022, President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, voiced his intention to transform 82,891 hectares (204,800 acres) of the barren lands that dominate the area where the new capital “Nusantara” will sit into lush tropical rainforests. The Nusantara Capital City Authority (OIKN), a government agency that oversees the progress of the new city’s development, said it is currently designing guidelines for how the private sector can get involved in the reforestation program. The government is looking for outside partners to speed up the implementation of the reforestation program, as the OIKN estimates that it will take 88 years to fully rehabilitate the new capital at the current pace with government efforts alone. Private sector participation is needed to make the new capital forest city as the president promised, OIKN forest utilization and water resource development director Pungky Widiaryanto told Mongabay. “This is indeed a joint work that needs all stakeholders.” There will be two categories of companies involved in the private sector rehabilitation scheme. First is companies that are already legally obligated to rehabilitate their mining concessions once their permits have expired. Under the program, companies with reforestation obligations anywhere in Indonesia will be able to count reforestation in the capital region&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-to-offer-tax-perks-to-companies-investing-in-reforestation-of-its-new-capital-city/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-to-offer-tax-perks-to-companies-investing-in-reforestation-of-its-new-capital-city/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-279046</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mini rainforest project aims to serve as Kalimantan reforestation blueprint</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/mini-rainforest-project-aims-to-serve-as-kalimantan-reforestation-blueprint/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/mini-rainforest-project-aims-to-serve-as-kalimantan-reforestation-blueprint/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Feb 2024 04:46:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/02/15043812/img-20231220-wa0020-scaled-e1707972352296-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278886</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Politics, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities, academics and companies are working together to build a miniature tropical rainforest they hope will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation program in Indonesia’s new capital in eastern Borneo. In 2019, President Joko Widodo announced plans to relocate the capital to Kalimantan, Indonesia’s part of the Borneo Island, to ease [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities, academics and companies are working together to build a miniature tropical rainforest they hope will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation program in Indonesia’s new capital in eastern Borneo. In 2019, President Joko Widodo announced plans to relocate the capital to Kalimantan, Indonesia’s part of the Borneo Island, to ease some of Jakarta’s burdens, including pollution, traffic congestion and rising sea waters. The president says the move will also allow the government to reforest lands that had been degraded by decades of industrial activities such as mining and pulpwood and oil palm plantations. Under the reforestation program, the government aims to replant lush tropical rainforest on 82,891 hectares (204,800 acres) of barren lands that dominate the area where Indonesia’s planned new capital, called Nusantara, will sit. Forestry experts have cautioned that the program may be overly ambitious due to its sheer scale and because it’s the first of its kind that aims to reintroduce tropical rainforests into a degraded ecosystem in Indonesia. Past rehabilitation programs in the country have mostly entailed efforts to rehabilitate secondary forests, rather than landscapes that are totally barren due to monoculture plantations and mining activities. The programs have primarily relied on techniques known as enrichment planting, involving the introduction of economically valuable tree species, usually just a few of them, to enhance the diversity of degraded but still-standing forests. By contrast, establishing tropical rainforest in a completely deforested area requires a totally different approach, one that involves the planting of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/mini-rainforest-project-aims-to-serve-as-kalimantan-reforestation-blueprint/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/mini-rainforest-project-aims-to-serve-as-kalimantan-reforestation-blueprint/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-278886</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Reforestation of Indonesia’s new capital city stumped by haphazard planting</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/reforestation-of-indonesias-new-capital-city-stumped-by-haphazard-planting/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/reforestation-of-indonesias-new-capital-city-stumped-by-haphazard-planting/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Feb 2024 14:05:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/02/13113209/Presiden-Jokowi-Tanam-Pohon-Bersama-di-Area-Sumbu-Kebangsaan-IKN-2048x1365-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278805</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Degraded Lands, Ecosystems, Environment, forest degradation, Forest Loss, Forest Regeneration, Forests, Industry, Landscape Restoration, Politics, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Planners building Indonesia’s new capital city in eastern Borneo say they’re far from their target of reforesting the site that the country’s president has projected will be a “green forest city” that the government plans to inaugurate later this year. Among the main obstacles: a tree-planting program that caters more to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Planners building Indonesia’s new capital city in eastern Borneo say they’re far from their target of reforesting the site that the country’s president has projected will be a “green forest city” that the government plans to inaugurate later this year. Among the main obstacles: a tree-planting program that caters more to the convenience of bureaucrats than the local ecology; a preference for nonnative tree species unsuited to the region; and a general lack of planning and coordination that’s resulted in some reforested areas being razed again for construction. The new capital, known as Nusantara, sits on former mining and logging concessions in the province of East Kalimantan, with much of the landscape today barren or degraded. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has said he envisions the new capital being surrounded by biodiverse tropical rainforest with a rich variety of tree species, rather than the monoculture plantations that blanket the region. “The concept of Nusantara is a forest city, which means this area has to be green, the environment here has to be green, and lastly, the buildings here have to be green as well,” the president said during a visit to the project site on Dec. 20, 2023. Since late 2022, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has reforested 1,441 hectares (3,560 acres) of the Nusantara site. That’s less than a tenth of the government’s 82,891-hectare (204,828-acre) reforestation target — an area larger than Jakarta or New York City — according to the OIKN, the government agency&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/reforestation-of-indonesias-new-capital-city-stumped-by-haphazard-planting/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/reforestation-of-indonesias-new-capital-city-stumped-by-haphazard-planting/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-278805</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-nusantara-proboscis-monkey-endangered-wildlife-balikpapan-bay-borneo/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-nusantara-proboscis-monkey-endangered-wildlife-balikpapan-bay-borneo/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Feb 2024 15:25:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/03/08161353/IMG_5363-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=278680</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Fisheries, Indonesian Forests, and Southeast Asian infrastructure]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Cities, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Forests, Fragmentation, Global Environmental Crisis, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Landscape Restoration, Mangroves, Marine, Marine Conservation, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Sustainability, Tropical Forests, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo may destabilize the current stable population of endangered proboscis monkeys, a study has warned. President Joko Widodo in 2019 declared the establishment of an entirely new capital in East Kalimantan province, moving the seat of government away from the overcrowded and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — The construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo may destabilize the current stable population of endangered proboscis monkeys, a study has warned. President Joko Widodo in 2019 declared the establishment of an entirely new capital in East Kalimantan province, moving the seat of government away from the overcrowded and rapidly sinking Jakarta in an effort to spur economic growth beyond the island of Java. But scientists from Indonesia and Czechia say in their recently published study that the development likely threatens the key mangrove ecosystem of Balikpapan Bay where a population of the proboscis monkeys (Nasalis larvatus) lives. “The Indonesian government should abide by its public commitments to sustainable development principles and embrace the global importance of this endangered primate and develop Nusantara city with respect for local biodiversity,” they wrote in the paper published in January in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. Balikpapan Bay is home to dense native mangroves where threatened species like proboscis monkeys live. Image by Basten Gokkon/Mongabay. The group of scientists, led by Tri Atmoko, a senior researcher at Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), conducted a population census in known habitats of the proboscis monkey to determine the total current population at 3,907 individuals — all living within the development range of the new city, Nusantara. In particular, they estimated 1,449 of the monkeys occur within the core area of Nusantara and would be pushed to the edges of their habitat by the ongoing construction work.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-nusantara-proboscis-monkey-endangered-wildlife-balikpapan-bay-borneo/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/indonesia-nusantara-proboscis-monkey-endangered-wildlife-balikpapan-bay-borneo/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-278680</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationists look to defy gloomy outlook for Borneo’s sun bears</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/conservationists-look-to-defy-gloomy-outlook-for-borneos-sun-bears/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/conservationists-look-to-defy-gloomy-outlook-for-borneos-sun-bears/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Oct 2023 13:08:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/31114315/Banner-2-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=274826</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Bears, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Deforestation, Ecotourism, Education, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, GPS, Green, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Mammals, Palm Oil, Pet Trade, Poaching, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Reintroductions, Research, Snares, Sun Bears, Tracking, Traditional People, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Rescues, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SABAH, Malaysia — The 3-year-old sun bear sits teddy bear-like in a secluded grassy glade in its rainforest enclosure. Its soft, densely furred belly vibrates as it sucks on one of its front paws, emitting a series of strange, guttural whimpers. Its head downturned, the young bear looks up at us shyly with deep brown [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SABAH, Malaysia — The 3-year-old sun bear sits teddy bear-like in a secluded grassy glade in its rainforest enclosure. Its soft, densely furred belly vibrates as it sucks on one of its front paws, emitting a series of strange, guttural whimpers. Its head downturned, the young bear looks up at us shyly with deep brown eyes, penetrating our human instinct to care for the vulnerable. “This is a rather sad behavior,” Siew Te Wong, CEO and founder of the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), tells Mongabay during a visit to the pioneering rescue and education facility in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Wong says the bear, named Kipaku, was brought to the center as an orphaned cub, and what we’re witnessing is the little bear’s trauma response. “As with all infant mammals, this bear has an urge to suckle,” Wong says. “But he has no mother; his mother was brutally killed by poachers, so he’s had no opportunity to suckle … in the end, he’s developed this self-soothing behavior.” Like Kipaku, most of the 44 sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) Wong and his colleagues currently care for at the BSBCC were brought to them as orphaned cubs illegally taken from the wild and subsequently confiscated by authorities. One of the goals of the BSBCC is to return some of the rescued bears back into the wild to bolster flagging local populations. Since it was launched in 2008, the center has rewilded 12 bears into remote forest reserves in Sabah. But&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/conservationists-look-to-defy-gloomy-outlook-for-borneos-sun-bears/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/conservationists-look-to-defy-gloomy-outlook-for-borneos-sun-bears/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-274826</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/report-alleges-app-continues-deforestation-10-years-after-pledge-to-stop/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/report-alleges-app-continues-deforestation-10-years-after-pledge-to-stop/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Oct 2023 05:42:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/31043802/GP049LC-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=274819</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Jambi, Kalimantan, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Certification, Conflict, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, forest degradation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forest Regeneration, Forests, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Peatlands, Plantations, Protected Areas, Pulp And Paper, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Social Conflict, Sustainability, Sustainable Forest Management, Tropical Deforestation, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A decade after Asia Pulp &#38; Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest paper producers, launched its landmark no-deforestation policy, the company continues to clear forests to feed its mills and drain and develop peatlands, a clear breach of the policy, a new report alleges. APP has a long history of deforestation, with [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — A decade after Asia Pulp &amp; Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest paper producers, launched its landmark no-deforestation policy, the company continues to clear forests to feed its mills and drain and develop peatlands, a clear breach of the policy, a new report alleges. APP has a long history of deforestation, with an estimated 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) — an area the size of Wales — of natural forest having been cleared in the three decades preceding 2010 for conversion into pulpwood plantations in two provinces alone, Riau and Jambi. Following widespread criticism of its role in driving deforestation and contributing to social conflicts, APP launched in February 2013 its Forest Conservation Policy (FCP), in which it pledged to not destroy natural forests for its pulpwood plantations. Under its FCP pledge, the pulp giant vowed to exclude timber sourced from the clearing of peatlands and rainforests as well as to reduce social conflict and seek free, prior and informed consent from communities when establishing new plantations. The policy was meant to apply to all APP operations and those of its suppliers, beginning in February 2013. Greenpeace, which helped forge APP’s policy, called the pledge “a game-changer” for the tropical pulp and paper sector as it was the biggest and most comprehensive corporate promise to end deforestation and peatland destruction by any company at the time. Furthermore, APP is one of the world’s largest pulp and paper manufacturers that supplies pulp and paper products like paper tissue, packaging&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/report-alleges-app-continues-deforestation-10-years-after-pledge-to-stop/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/report-alleges-app-continues-deforestation-10-years-after-pledge-to-stop/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-274819</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>O.K. Coral: Outlaw fisher turns reef marshal in Indonesia’s Sumbawa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/o-k-coral-outlaw-fisher-turns-reef-marshal-in-indonesias-sumbawa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/o-k-coral-outlaw-fisher-turns-reef-marshal-in-indonesias-sumbawa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Oct 2023 04:15:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Asad Asnawi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/10/26071009/Amiruddin-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=274657</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and West Nusa Tenggara]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Rehabilitation, and Restoration]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[WEST SUMBAWA, Indonesia — More than a decade ago, Amiruddin would climb aboard a small fishing boat under the cover of night armed with around 10 bombs. Amir, as he is commonly known, and his accomplices motored for around half an hour from the western shoreline of Indonesia’s Sumbawa Island to waters off the small [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[WEST SUMBAWA, Indonesia — More than a decade ago, Amiruddin would climb aboard a small fishing boat under the cover of night armed with around 10 bombs. Amir, as he is commonly known, and his accomplices motored for around half an hour from the western shoreline of Indonesia’s Sumbawa Island to waters off the small island of Paserang. Then the men would detonate the explosives over the reef below, Amir told Mongabay Indonesia. “I have done all the illegal fishing practices,” Amir said. “It’s because the yield was so great.” Amir, who is in his late 30s, has ventured out to sea ever since he was a child. As a younger man, he would explore the islands off West Sumbawa district with explosives and poison, menacing schools of fish by carpet bombing the reefs where they fed. Amir would haul vast quantities, often 500-1,000 kilograms (1,100-2,200 pounds) of fish shocked or maimed by the demolition. The explosives gained him a fourfold increase compared with less-destructive fishing practices, he said, but at the expense of around 10 square meters (107 square feet) of coral at a time. “If you use fish bombs, it&#8217;s quick,” he said. Amir’s luck almost ran out in 2010 when police found him cruising the waters off Gili Balu, an island off Sumbawa, looking for fish schools. However, Amir was not carrying explosives on that occasion and police later released him from custody. Amiruddin checks underwater conditions in the Gili Balu conservation area, West Sumbawa. Image courtesy&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/o-k-coral-outlaw-fisher-turns-reef-marshal-in-indonesias-sumbawa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/o-k-coral-outlaw-fisher-turns-reef-marshal-in-indonesias-sumbawa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-274657</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As dry season looms, Sumatra villagers hope their peat restoration pays off</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/as-dry-season-looms-sumatra-villagers-hope-their-peat-restoration-pays-off/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/as-dry-season-looms-sumatra-villagers-hope-their-peat-restoration-pays-off/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Dec 2022 15:33:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/05110853/forest-fire-in-Riau-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=264133</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Forests and Indonesian Palm Oil]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroforestry, Air Pollution, Climate Change, Community Forests, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fires, Forest Destruction, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Nature-based climate solutions, Palm Oil, Peatlands, Plantations, Pulp And Paper, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Research, Restoration, Solutions, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Intensive efforts in recent years to prevent fires in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s perennial epicenter of forest and land fires, will be put to the test this year as the dry season makes a full return. At the heart of these efforts are community-led initiatives aimed at restoring degraded peatlands and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Intensive efforts in recent years to prevent fires in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s perennial epicenter of forest and land fires, will be put to the test this year as the dry season makes a full return. At the heart of these efforts are community-led initiatives aimed at restoring degraded peatlands and finding ways to farm that don’t involve setting the land on fire. Riau province, on the eastern coast of the island of Sumatra, has been spared major fires the past three years because of prevailing La Niña conditions that resulted in wetter-than-usual dry seasons. But that’s set to fade away with the onset of the next dry season in early 2023, according to Ramlan, head of the Riau office of Indonesia’s national weather agency, the BMKG. “Until March 2023, there’s still an indication that there’ll be a weak La Niña. But after March, the condition will be neutral,” Ramlan told Mongabay. “So if we compare 2023 with the condition in 2020-2022, then of course it’ll be drier compared to the past three years.” This, he said, raises the risk of forest fires in Riau. That makes the upcoming dry season a sort of litmus test for Riau’s fire-prevention efforts, according to Even Sembiring, head of the Riau chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi). “With next year’s weather prediction, it is a test for us to see how effective [peat] restoration efforts and law enforcement have been,” he told Mongabay. Among the fire-prevention&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/as-dry-season-looms-sumatra-villagers-hope-their-peat-restoration-pays-off/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/12/as-dry-season-looms-sumatra-villagers-hope-their-peat-restoration-pays-off/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-264133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mangroves and wildlife in Bornean bay at risk from Indonesia’s new capital</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/mangroves-and-wildlife-in-bornean-bay-at-risk-from-indonesias-new-capital/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/mangroves-and-wildlife-in-bornean-bay-at-risk-from-indonesias-new-capital/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Oct 2022 16:13:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten GokkonRichaldo Hariandja]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/10/07105210/RASI-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=261269</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indonesian Fisheries and Indonesian Forests]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, Kalimantan, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Cities, Conservation, Deforestation, Development, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Forests, Fragmentation, Global Environmental Crisis, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Landscape Restoration, Mangroves, Marine, Marine Conservation, Politics, Pollution, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Sustainability, Tropical Forests, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA/NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — The Indonesian government’s strategy to minimize the marine impacts of building a new capital city on the island of Borneo is severely lacking, researchers and activists say. The city of Nusantara, where the government will move the nation’s capital in 2024 from Jakarta, is being constructed in the province of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA/NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — The Indonesian government’s strategy to minimize the marine impacts of building a new capital city on the island of Borneo is severely lacking, researchers and activists say. The city of Nusantara, where the government will move the nation’s capital in 2024 from Jakarta, is being constructed in the province of East Kalimantan, upstream of the port city of Balikpapan. Balikpapan Bay is home to large expanses of mangroves that host a rich diversity of marine and terrestrial life. Coral reefs and seagrass meadows are believed to grow underwater, and traditional fishers have relied on the bay for their livelihoods since the 1970s. But all this is under threat from the new city taking shape upriver, said Imam Syafi’i, a political researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), a government-funded agency. “Unfortunately, when parts of the bay’s upstream have been annexed for the new capital, no strategy has apparently been developed to conserve the wildlife living in the bay’s downstream,” he said in a webinar on Oct. 7. Mapaselle, executive director of the community conservation group Pokja Pesisir, echoed the concern over the lack of any mitigation plan to protect the bay. “The development plan of the new capital that’s located upstream of Balikpapan Bay has yet to include any mitigation measures of its impacts to the downstream area,” he said at the same online discussion. “All of this certainly will exacerbate the degradation of Balikpapan Bay.” A map showing East Kalimantan province in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/mangroves-and-wildlife-in-bornean-bay-at-risk-from-indonesias-new-capital/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/mangroves-and-wildlife-in-bornean-bay-at-risk-from-indonesias-new-capital/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-261269</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Jumbo task as Malawi moves 263 elephants to restock a degraded national park</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/jumbo-task-as-malawi-moves-263-elephants-to-restock-a-degraded-national-park/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/jumbo-task-as-malawi-moves-263-elephants-to-restock-a-degraded-national-park/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Aug 2022 12:34:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/07/22120204/1-a-crane-lifts-an-elephant-into-a-truck-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=258488</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Malawi]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Mammals, National Parks, Poaching, Protected Areas, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Solutions, Wildlife, and Wildlife Rehabilitation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LIWONDE NATIONAL PARK, Malawi — Early one July morning, a helicopter with wildlife officials on board flies above the forests of Malawi&#8217;s Liwonde National Park in search of elephants. Within half an hour, a small herd has been spotted and the crew radios a support team on the ground. As the ground team gets in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LIWONDE NATIONAL PARK, Malawi — Early one July morning, a helicopter with wildlife officials on board flies above the forests of Malawi&#8217;s Liwonde National Park in search of elephants. Within half an hour, a small herd has been spotted and the crew radios a support team on the ground. As the ground team gets in place, the pilot maneuvers the plane to herd the four elephants to an open area, descending low enough to allow the experts on board to fire tranquilizer darts at the elephants. It will take less than 8 minutes for the sedative to take effect, the officials say. As soon as the animals are down, the ground team starts taking measurements, collaring and labelling the elephants before tying ropes to their feet, hooking them to a crane and lifting the elephants into trucks. There, an antidote is administered to reverse the effects of the tranquilizer and get the elephants back on their feet ahead of the 350-kilometer (217-mile) journey to their new home in Kasungu National Park. These scenes played out repeatedly for a month, until more than 260 elephants were relocated from Liwonde National Park, managed by African Parks, a South Africa-headquartered NGO, to restock the government-run Kasungu National Park, where the elephant population has been hit by poaching. The translocation, estimated to cost more than $1 million, is aimed at building viable populations of the key species and promoting tourism in the park, Brighton Kumchedwa, director of Malawi&#8217;s Department of National Parks and Wildlife,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/jumbo-task-as-malawi-moves-263-elephants-to-restock-a-degraded-national-park/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/jumbo-task-as-malawi-moves-263-elephants-to-restock-a-degraded-national-park/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-258488</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A helping hand for red-footed tortoises making a comeback in Argentina</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/a-helping-hand-for-red-footed-tortoises-making-a-comeback-in-argentina/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/a-helping-hand-for-red-footed-tortoises-making-a-comeback-in-argentina/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 May 2022 13:14:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Elizabethalberts]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/05/30130404/MG_5395-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=256454</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Argentina, Chaco, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Ecology, Forest Regeneration, Pet Trade, Rehabilitation, Reintroductions, Reptiles, Rewilding, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Species, Tracking, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Wildlife Rescues, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Red-footed tortoises are so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that they’re considered to be locally extinct. But now, the species is plodding its way toward a comeback. On May 19, conservationists working with Rewilding Argentina and partner organizations released 10 red-footed tortoises (Chelonoidis carbonarius) into El Impenetrable National Park in Chaco [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Red-footed tortoises are so rarely seen in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that they’re considered to be locally extinct. But now, the species is plodding its way toward a comeback. On May 19, conservationists working with Rewilding Argentina and partner organizations released 10 red-footed tortoises (Chelonoidis carbonarius) into El Impenetrable National Park in Chaco province, a 130,000-hectare (321,000-acre) park in northern Argentina, close to the Paraguay border. In the coming months, the team plans to release another 30 tortoises. Since the establishment of El Impenetrable National Park in 2014, the park has been the site of several rewilding projects, including the reintroduction of jaguars (Panthera onca) and marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus). But this is the first time Rewilding Argentina has worked with reptiles, said Sebastián Di Martino, the conservation director of the organization. “It&#8217;s very important to bring this species back to the country,” Di Martino told Mongabay. “We expect that the species will start to fulfill their ecological role [as] a seed disperser, which will be very good for the forest. And, of course, [we hope] that they become a part of this new economy that we are trying to build in this region.” Red-footed tortoises have been under pressure from an illegal pet trade that’s booming in Paraguay and Bolivia, Di Martino said. Additional threats include habitat destruction and targeted hunting for meat consumption. Conservationists have already released 10 red-footed tortoises (Chelonoidis carbonarius) into El Impenetrable National Park, and they plan to release another 30 tortoises in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/a-helping-hand-for-red-footed-tortoises-making-a-comeback-in-argentina/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-256454</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Community-led coral restoration project is rare hit amid slew of misses in Indonesia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/community-led-coral-restoration-project-is-rare-hit-amid-slew-of-misses-in-indonesia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/community-led-coral-restoration-project-is-rare-hit-amid-slew-of-misses-in-indonesia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 May 2022 16:58:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/05/04115456/1-Members-of-the-Pokdarwis-Tramena-and-Pokmaswas-Gili-Mantra-project-in-Gili-Trawangan-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=255372</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Marine, Marine Conservation, Mongabay Data Studio, Oceans, Rehabilitation, and Restoration]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“When I was a kid, it was easy to find and catch fish and to see hatchlings of turtles walking around the beach on my way to school,” says Matla’ah, a resident of Gili Indah village on Gili Trawangan, a sun-kissed island popular with divers between the better-known Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok. For [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“When I was a kid, it was easy to find and catch fish and to see hatchlings of turtles walking around the beach on my way to school,” says Matla’ah, a resident of Gili Indah village on Gili Trawangan, a sun-kissed island popular with divers between the better-known Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok. For the current generation of Gili Trawangan children, these experiences are less common, as many of the island’s coastal ecosystems have been severely damaged by natural and human-related disturbances. In August 2018, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Lombok, leaving 563 people dead, more than 1,000 injured, and 417,000 people displaced from their homes. Gili Trawangan, just 42 kilometers (26 miles) from the epicenter of the quake, also experienced widespread damage, though not as much destruction as the more built-up and densely populated Lombok mainland. That event was followed less than two years later by the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down the tourism industry that has always been Gili Trawangan’s main earner. While for many on the island it meant a massive disruption to their livelihood, for others it presented an opportunity to restore their damaged coral reefs. Matla’ah was among 20 local community members from her village who helped establish the Pokdarwis Tramena tourism awareness group and the Pokmaswas Gili Matra community monitoring group. Together, they self-funded a reef restoration project that focuses on building and maintaining small coral reef gardens around Gili Trawangan. The project by the Pokdarwis Tramena and Pokmaswas Gili Mantra groups uses&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/05/community-led-coral-restoration-project-is-rare-hit-amid-slew-of-misses-in-indonesia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-255372</doi>				</item>
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