JAKARTA — Citizens of countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, strongly prefer clean energy over the coal projects that have become Beijing’s calling card, a new…
JAKARTA — Investigators in Indonesia have charged the head of the state-owned power utility with corruption in connection to a coal-fired plant being built in Sumatra. The Corruption Eradication Commission,…
At first glance, the news seems good: global tropical deforestation declined for the second year in a row, according to new satellite data. But digging in a little deeper reveals…
JAKARTA — A local official in Indonesia has mounted a non-legal challenge against the national government for permitting the development of a corruption-riddled oil palm concession in his district. Amirudin…
JAKARTA — One of the world’s biggest paper producers has left a trail of conflicts in its two-decade pursuit to develop pulpwood plantations on land also claimed by local communities…
DENPASAR/JAKARTA — In November 2017, when locals spotted 10 sperm whales stranded on a beach on the island of Sumatra, they had no idea what to do. Stuck in shallow…
IRRAWADDY DELTA, Myanmar — For many in Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis was a wake-up call. When it made landfall in May 2008, it devastated the Irrawaddy Delta, a rural and low-lying…
Indonesia provides a litmus test for the World Bank’s commitment to divest from coal, with a recent report revealing its continued indirect financing of some of Indonesia’s most destructive coal-mining…
Helping the Indonesian government prosecute companies accused of environmental crimes is a risky job. Last year, Bambang Hero Saharjo, the Indonesian environment ministry’s chief expert witness against plantation companies accused…
A new study has shed light on how rare lizards found only in Sri Lanka are winding up in Europe as part of the illegal trade in exotic wildlife. The…
PALAWAN, Philippines — In the wilderness of the Philippines’ southwestern island province of Palawan, dubbed the country’s last biodiversity frontier, lives a scaly mammal found nowhere else on Earth: the…
CAT BA ISLAND, Vietnam – While approaching Hai Phong, a major city on Vietnam’s northeast coast, it is impossible to miss signs of the country’s fast-growing economic might. GDP growth…
JAKARTA — A logging prohibition in Indonesia aimed at protecting peatlands threatens a supply crunch for two of the world’s biggest paper producers that could drive them to source wood…
Sri Lanka will push for international protection of its endemic lizards threatened by smuggling when it hosts a global biodiversity trade summit next month. When the 18th meeting of the Conference…
AMBON, Indonesia — Last February, a crocodile in eastern Indonesia crawled right into a trap. The animal, a 2-meter-long (6.6-foot) saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), was suspected to have preyed on…
In one of the biggest busts in recent years, Chinese officials have seized 2,748 elephant tusks weighing more than 7 tonnes, the General Administration of Customs announced earlier this week.…
JAKARTA — The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has called for a halt to all projects that threaten the world’s rarest great ape species, the Tapanuli orangutan. “IUCN…
Until recently, there were just four known Yangtze giant softshell turtles in the world. On April 13, the only known female among them died in China’s Suzhou Shangfangshan Forest Zoo…
A tiny fish described in 2013 from a stream in Sri Lanka was apparently a known species that had been moved there years earlier, according to a study that underscores…
JAKARTA — A new documentary film that shows the links between Indonesian coal and energy companies and the country’s political elite has been released online ahead of the world’s biggest…
