The concrete industry is a major carbon emitter and polluter, with severe human health impacts. But circular solutions, including electrifying cement plants, making low-carbon cement, and bio-architecture could offer relief.
A paper generated by the Merz Institute, an Aotearoa New Zealand-based research institute, and published in the journal Science Progress in 2023, hypothesizes that the environmental crises our planet faces…
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…
BOGOR, Indonesia — At the age of 60, Siti Salamah started making changes at her family home in the city of Bogor, just south of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. “We always…
With its iconic skylines and waterfront vistas, Singapore is today a bustling city-state with one of the highest population densities in the world. Two centuries ago, before the British chose…
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…
NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — When an expectant mother is around three days from entering labor, the Suku Balik prepare a container out of coconut palm containing fruit, tobacco and…
Four thousand students planted nearly 10,000 trees on public school grounds in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2022, and another eight mini-forests will be planted in 2023.
Indonesia is readying a fleet of drones to launch over Nusantara, its new capital city, as part of efforts to protect the under-construction site in Borneo from wildfires, officials told…
From increases in severe storms to warming average temperatures, the climate crisis presents pressing challenges to environmental and social conditions around the world. Forests have been recognized as a key…
MADURA, Indonesia — For centuries, every architect in Indonesia relied on local materials when constructing homes and public spaces. Today Yu Sing is one of the few holding onto this…
DHAKA — It was a misty winter morning in February 2012. Shomour Kumar Ghosh started out his day by opening his sweetmeat shop in the district of Pabna in western…
DHAKA — Authorities in Bangladesh have rolled out two schemes to combat air pollution in the capital Dhaka, one of the world’s fastest growing mega cities and one of the…
The latest recipe is here: you’ll need a cup of minerals, two tablespoons of air and water, a few billion microorganisms, a teaspoon of organic matter and … a pinch…
We live in a rapidly urbanizing world, with half of humanity now concentrated in cities. Without adequate and affordable housing, more than a billion people live in informal settlements or…
Urban green spaces — parks, gardens and other green areas where people can go to enjoy some fresh air — are more than just pretty places to relax. New research…
JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…
BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA — A clearing for the ramp to a new toll road in the Indonesian Bornean city of Balikpapan gapes open on the side of a paved highway as big…
SEPAKU/BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — In 1977, when Darna was about 8 years old, her family moved from Indonesia’s central island of Java to Borneo, its largest. They were among the tens…
KATHMANDU — From early to mid-October, as Nepali Hindus celebrated the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the skies over the Kathmandu Valley stayed a clear blue. To the north lay…
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…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Food plants intermingle on the second-floor rooftop of a house in Medan, the biggest city on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They were planted by Sakiah Nasution,…
Indonesia’s planned new capital city on the island of Borneo, Nusantara, is being touted by the government as a "green" city. However, its construction may lead to a surge in…
JAKARTA — In May, Indonesians breathed a sigh of relief when President Joko Widodo announced that masks were no longer required to be worn outdoors as a guard against COVID-19.…
DHAKA — Air pollution in Bangladesh is the worst in the world, contributing to a reduction of nearly seven years in the average life expectancy, according to a new study.…
MANAUS, Brazil — In the historic center of Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, a giant mural depicting the city’s Indigenous history looms above pedestrians jostling for space…
KATHMANDU — Stuffed garbage bags float gently down the Bisnumati River in the western part of Kathmandu. The river, sacred to Nepal’s Hindu and Buddhist populations, is one of the…
Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state. They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
KAMPUNG NAGA, Indonesia — Ucu Suherlin pictures his community as a small fishing boat in the center of a perfect storm. As the kuncen naga, or senior customary elder, 55-year-old…
Despite living in a concrete jungle, London’s urban bees fly shorter distances to feast on nectar-rich flowers than their neighbors in the countryside—a counterintuitive discovery explained by the many lush…