In the leadup to the release of the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the corruption behind Indonesia's deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are republishing the first…
Arkani, an elderly Dayak man, drew a telling comparison between the plight of his community and that of the orangutans inhabiting a nearby rainforest, in a part of Borneo that…
Budiardi was one of the more colorful characters we met in our reporting for “ The palm oil fiefdom.” Thickset and outspoken, he was previously a member of the local…
JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia have arrested and charged two rubber farmers for allegedly shooting and beheading a Bornean orangutan whose body was discovered last month in a river. Investigators…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities have retrieved 17 air gun pellets from the body of an orangutan found decapitated and seemingly tortured in Indonesian Borneo earlier this week. The discovery was…
JAKARTA — Conservation authorities in Indonesia are investigating the death of an orangutan whose headless and apparently tortured body was found earlier this week in a river in central Borneo.…
JAKARTA — Tens of thousands of birds, many of them protected species on the brink of extinction, are being openly traded in Indonesian Borneo, in the first clear picture to…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) Prologue: Jakarta, 2007 On Nov. 29, 2007, on the tenth floor of a marble-clad office block in Jakarta, the scion of one of Indonesia’s wealthiest families met with…
(Read the first article in the series, "The palm oil fiefdom.") Indonesia, a nation of thousands of islands draped across the equator, is in the grips of a social and…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia and JAKARTA -- One of the largest drainage canals ever dug through Indonesia’s peat swamps is being blocked in Kalimantan, the archipelago country’s portion of Borneo island, part…
Over the past half century, we've laid waste to the rainforests of Borneo. Fed by our insatiable demand for food, fuel, and fiber, vast tracts of cathedral-like landscape across the…
CENTRAL KALIMANTAN, Indonesian Borneo — Dense vegetation presses up to the banks of the Lamandau River, with tree branches dropping low overhead to form a natural tunnel. Occasionally, the calls…
After coming under public scrutiny, Central Kalimantan Governor Sugianto Sabran halted the construction of a railroad being built to transport coal through forested areas of the province. The governor's decision…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — A rescue center in Borneo is trying to decide what to do with an albino orangutan whose genes may pose a threat to local populations, should the animal…
The morning after a rainy night, mist enshrouds the lush canopy of the forest at Bawan village. This 1,453-hectare hillock packed with high-value timber sits on the edge of the…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — One recent morning I paid a visit to Iber Djamal, a leader of the Dayak Ngaju indigenous people. He had invited us to see his mandau, a…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — The road from this inland provincial capital in southern Borneo to the delta city of Banjarmasin is littered with degraded forests and peat swamps, hallmarks of a…
Singapore’s National Environment Agency said on Friday it expected air quality to remain poor into the weekend as Indonesian disaster management officials cautioned that wildfires in Sumatra and Kalimantan could…
Air quality in Indonesia and peninsular Malaysia declined this week as prevailing southwesterly winds continued to blow smog over the water that separates the two countries. “Smoke from forest fires…
The effort to rescue and rehabilitate Indonesia’s captive orangutans received a boost last week when 10 of the primates were released in a national park in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part…
Last year’s forest and peatland fire catastrophe is a memory now. But it may have claimed another life this week, with the passing of one of Indonesia’s foremost advocates for…
Other stories in Mongabay's Conservation, Divided series: Part 2: How big donors and corporations shape conservation goals Part 3: Conservation today, the old-fashioned way Part 4: Conservation's people problem Epilogue: Conservation…
n the library shelves of its Nyaru Menteng rehabilitation center in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) has row upon row of bound volumes, each bearing the…
Reactions to Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s recently announced plan to ban new oil palm and mining permits were generally positive on Friday, with activists reminding him that the devil is…
Smog from forest fires and hotspots continued to threaten air quality in parts of Indonesia's Sumatra on Friday as local authorities waited for the mid-April rainy season to arrive. The…
oop,” went the hi-tech pressurized Spezialgeräte GmbH Telinject gun. And yet again “foop.” The crack sniper from the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) lumbered about on the boggy forest floor,…
Local governments, environmental agencies, emergency services and the military are working across Indonesia’s fire-prone areas as President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo tries to minimize this year’s haze in what could be…
A coalition of NGOs working with Indonesia’s antigraft agency has produced an index on mining practices and supervision in 12 provinces, part of an official effort to combat the prevailing…
The leadership of Indonesia’s new peatlands restoration agency was rounded out on Friday, with the inauguration of five lieutenants to agency chief Nazir Foead. Hartono Prawiratmadja was named secretary. The…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has appointed conservationist Nazir Foead to head up a newly-created peatland restoration agency, which aims to resurrect peatlands devastated by recent fires. The establishment of the…
