JAKARTA — In early September, a whale shark washed up on a beach in the Indonesian province of West Java. Within hours, locals had chopped up the 7-meter (23-foot) fish…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has sentenced a high-ranking official to 12 years in prison for taking bribes in exchange for issuing…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its…
PALAWAN, Philippines — On Aug. 8, 2013, Fernando de Chavez, along with more than 400 farmers and advocates, stormed a Golden Rice field trial site in Pili, a town in…
In a heartening turn of events, the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, which spans the southwest border of Bangladesh, is seeing promising signs of recovery for the iconic Bengal…
KATHMANDU – In December 2022, Hiru Lal Dangaura, Vikram Tiwari and Subam Chaudhary were conducting a routine check on a vulture colony in the western plains of Nepal, when they…
SUMENEP, Indonesia — Small-scale fishers in Indonesia’s Masalembu Islands have filed a petition to the government calling for the establishment of an exclusive fishing zone off-limits to larger trawlers that…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s move to categorize coal-fired power plants for industry as sustainable has sparked criticism from energy and finance observers, who say it goes against the scientific evidence. The…
JAKARTA — Environmental policy experts are calling on the presidential hopefuls in Indonesia’s election next year to lay out their strategies for moving the country away from fossil fuels and…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized the rights of 15 Indigenous Dayak communities to forests on Borneo covering a combined area larger than Jakarta. The nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000…
JAKARTA — Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top two producers of palm oil, have set up a joint task force with the European Union to address their differences over a…
It’s long been known that many people depend on the world’s single largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, for their livelihoods, as the forest naturally provides resources including fish, crabs, honey…
KATHMANDU — Nepali researchers have yet again photographed a snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and common leopard (P. pardus) in the same location in the lap of Mount Gaurishankar in the…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s owls are perhaps the least-studied birds in the country, often overlooked by researchers more focused on the rarer vultures and cranes. Yet owls also face the same…
PU TROM, Cambodia — The quiet life that Sambo leads today seems as distant from her past plight as the searing-hot streets she once trod as a tourist attraction in…
MONDULKIRI, Cambodia — In a rare win for conservationists and Cambodia’s Indigenous communities, the Ministry of Environment has opted to suspend a planned marble mining operation within a wildlife sanctuary…
In the 21st century, Sri Lanka finds itself faced with an increasingly complex and interconnected landscape of risks that are often covariate and mutually compounding. Climate change — along with…
KATHMANDU — On a bright morning in the hills of Nepal, among the green needles and brown cones of a chir pine tree (Pinus roxburghii) a pair of white-rumped vultures…
MANILA – Hornbills in the Philippines already suffer from habitat loss and forest conversion, but the illegal sale of these endangered birds in the online market could further plunge their…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deal with industrialized countries for the latter to channel $20 billion in funding to help speed up the former’s energy transition is hitting a snag due to…
“As cheap as water” is a common saying in Bangladesh. Despite the fact that water is actually not cheap, salespeople nonetheless love to use the expression to draw the attention…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A flurry of subdecrees released through the end of July and early August show that the Cambodian government has approved he addition of more than a…
In order to fulfill its promise of cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as part of the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, Bangladesh is on the way…
KATHMANDU — Fishing cats are among the most elusive and understudied small cats in the world. They’re also among the most threatened, faced with habitat loss, conflict with humans, and…
BATAM, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have called on their counterparts in neighboring Singapore to crack down on the illegal lobster larvae trade, given that the city-state is a key hub…
JAKARTA — As Indonesia positions itself to become a key global hub for electric vehicle batteries, it’s also putting people and the environment at harm through the coal-fired plants powering…
PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government has awarded another large swath of Botum Sakor National Park to local conglomerate Royal Group, carving out yet more land from this ostensibly protected…
JAKARTA — A million-dollar bribery case in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s palm oil heartland, has prompted calls for a wider investigation into corruption between business players and the local…
SINGAPORE — If you didn’t know better, you might think Edwin Beng is heading home after buying a new appliance. It’s a muggy Sunday morning in Singapore, and Beng, carrying…
DHAKA — It’s the monsoon season in Bangladesh, where the annual rains are both a boon for farmers and a worry for many living in flood-prone areas. For the country’s…