Borneo News

SAMARINDA, Indonesia — The search for a potential mate for a captive female Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesian Borneo has been put on hold for the year, one of many activities…

In his 2006 book, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, science writer David Quammen says, “Some people admire soldiers, or surgeons, or firemen, or astrophysicists, or medical missionaries, or cowboys. I admire…

Tropical rainforests have an outsized role in the world. Of the Earth’s ecosystems, rainforests support the largest variety of plants and animal species, house the majority of indigenous groups still…

Primary forests in the tropics are declining at an accelerating rate according to analysis of satellite data released last week by the University of Maryland (UMD) and World Resources Institute…

MEMPAWAH, Indonesia — In a village in western Borneo, Suma Ruslian runs a community center that helps fellow agriculture and aquaculture farmers prepare for the impact of a massive infrastructure…

Yohanes Terang, the well-known and respected Dayak poet who took up social and environmental activism long before it became a mainstream concern in West Kalimantan, Indonesia Pak (Mr) Yohanes, as…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s plan to relocate the country’s capital from Java to Borneo has hit a wall amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with a top official saying they would…

Dramatic images of orangutans being rescued from clear-cut forests are ubiquitous on the web and in nature magazines, but new research suggests that rather than being a crucial tool for…

JAKARTA — More fertile female Sumatran rhinos should be captured from the wild for breeding programs to save the species, scientists say, citing the prevalence of reproductive problems. Working specifically…

Logging for timber by definition reduces tree cover. But what happens when logging stops? A new study has found that in concessions where timber firms have stopped operating, deforestation actually…

The scale of excavation for copper and gold in the 1970s and 1980s at the Panguna mine, then one of the world’s largest open-pit mines, was massive: It swallowed up…

PONTIANAK, Indonesia — As the forests of Indonesian Borneo burned during fires last year, a female orangutan was forced to leave her burning home. When she was rescued from a…

Philip Jacobson, an American editor for the non-profit environmental news platform Mongabay, was deported from Indonesia today, January 31, more than six weeks after authorities in the city of Palangkaraya…

JAKARTA — Indigenous activists in Indonesian Borneo have scored a big win in a lawsuit against a coal mining firm that sought to operate on their land. After a two-year…

Mongabay editor Philip Jacobson has now been detained for 42 days in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan over an alleged violation of his business visa. "Phil is still under 'city arrest' in…

[UPDATE] 1/31/2020 - Philip Jacobson was deported from Indonesia today, with the original charge against him dismissed. Read more here.  Philip Jacobson, an award-winning editor for the environmental science news outlet…

A ceaselessly growing human population and an ever-expanding world economy based on the unsustainable demands of a few over-consuming nations, have already caused habitat degradation, forest fragmentation, and forest loss…

2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…

In Indonesia, a major producer and consumer of coal, politicians often argue that continued reliance on the highly polluting fossil fuel remains an economic necessity. Challenging this conventional wisdom, a…

SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Two abandoned open-pit coal mines, each of which has claimed the life of a child in Indonesia’s Eastern Kalimantan province, have been earmarked for restoration efforts led…

On Nov. 23, the last Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia died. Named Iman, she’d lived in captivity in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo for just over five…

The world has long associated plummeting populations of Southeast Asian wildlife with news of forest degradation and poignant images of deforested lands. Recent studies, however, bring to light another human…

This story was co-published with The Gecko Project.  When Rita Widyasari, the former head of Kutai Kartanegara district in Indonesian Borneo, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year…

As the forests of South Kalimantan province were whittled away by extractive industries, just one district in this corner of Indonesian Borneo remained free of both mining and oil palm…

EAST LAMPUNG, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities will make their first attempt at in vitro fertilization of a Sumatran rhino, aiming to boost the critically endangered species’ gene pool in the…

There’s a new species of fruit-eating bird in Borneo that is now known as the Spectacled Flowerpecker. The species wasn’t entirely unknown up until now. Scientists and birdwatchers have spotted…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency has charged a former politician from Borneo in connection with a port development project, in a move that could shed light on an earlier scandal…

JAKARTA — A recent effort by scientists to produce a Sumatran rhino embryo using egg and sperm samples taken from the last of the species in Malaysia has failed, according…

As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.

JAKARTA — Scientists attempting a last-ditch attempt to breed the most threatened rhino species on Earth say they’re not hopeful about their latest effort, blaming government inaction for holding back…