Development News

As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a…

HIYUNG, Indonesia — For the village cultivating Indonesia’s most pungent chili pepper, July is a time of prosperity — and potential ruin. That midsummer month is when hundreds of farmers…

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — As the military regime entrenches itself in Myanmar following its Feb. 1 coup and forceful crackdown on protesters, activists are calling on companies that operate in…

JAKARTA — The world’s leading palm oil sustainability certification scheme may have helped reduce deforestation and pollution in areas where it’s applied, but has had a limited impact on rural…

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In a move that has prompted outrage in Cambodia and beyond, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on May 5 sentenced five activists from the environmental group…

PALAWAN, Philippines — Nicole Tayag, 30, learned to snorkel at 5 when her father took her to the teeming waters of Coron to scout for potential tourist destinations back in…

PURWOKERTO, Indonesia — An environmental expert in Indonesia has warned against a government plan to relocate mangrove trees along the north coast of the island of Java to make way…

PUNE, India — A 58-page, undated “vision document” produced by an Indian government think tank outlines a concept for the “sustainable development” of Little Andaman Island. The rainforested and sparsely…

The planned construction of three luxury residential estates in vital wildlife refuge and popular tourist site Bokor National Park marks the latest update in a wider tale of loss for…

Western forests are pretty healthy, though our relationships with them may not be.  Humans crave the spotlight in environmental narratives. We shape the land and fix the bad contours. Of…

This article is the second in a two-part series on the future of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. Read the first installment here. Vietnam's Mekong Delta is approximately the same size as…

On any list of places menaced by climate change, Vietnam's broad and fertile Mekong Delta ranks near the top. And yet, as I wrote for Mongabay four years ago, rising…

The Trans-Sumatran Highway is a $1.1 billion dollar project spanning 2,700 kilometers – from Banda Aceh in the north to Bandar Lampung in the south – and is designed to…

North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA…

AKLAN, Philippines — Authorities in the Philippines have arrested a resort owner on the island of Boracay for allegedly violating the country’s forestry and marine resources management laws. The investigation…

Jair Bolsonaro and 6,000 of his appointees come from Brazil’s military, which historically sees Amazon infrastructure and development as vital to national security and to averting foreign invasion: Analysis.

The area surrounding the town of Nuquí and its neighboring bay of Tribugá on Colombia’s northern Pacific coast has some of highest levels of rainfall in the world, a unique…

JAKARTA/MAKASSAR — Activists in Indonesia have slammed what they call the authorities’ campaign of criminalization against a fishing community protesting against the development of a port on their coast. Police…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — A $9.3 billion residential and tourism development has been approved within the buffer zone of the Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve here in this…

MAJENE, Indonesia — On a breezy afternoon, fishermen are preparing to set sail from a beach on the western coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island. Not far off, two excavators dredge…

On July 23rd, 2020, we Mozambicans celebrated the 60th birthday of our flagship national park: Gorongosa. It is located in the center of our country and is a symbol of…

Companies and governments are pushing for the privatization of land around the world as a way to get at economically valuable resources, according to a recent report from the Oakland…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Paskalina called to me by waving her hand and asked me to come to her house in a whisper. It was my…

Habitat loss and climate change are often blamed for the decreasing numbers of migratory shorebirds in a major flyway in the Asia-Pacific region in recent years. But it might be…

A pork and chicken producer has expanded its operations in northern Ecuador with the help of funding from the World Bank's commercial lending arm, despite sustained complaints from local communities…

The World Bank’s private investment arm has channeled more than $1.8 billion into major livestock and factory farming operations across the world over the past decade, despite calls for the…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is reopening dozens of conservation areas to local and foreign tourists after months of closure, even as the number of COVID-19 infections in the country continues to…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  This post details the analysis we carried out to estimate the revenues generated by the Korindo Group from harvesting timber as it…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) Part 1: ‘Maybe they didn’t expect us to find it’ In April 2019, an Indonesian delegate stepped onto…

JAKARTA — As Indonesia struggles to contain one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in Asia, the country’s president has quietly issued a new regulation on eminent domain. Signed in May,…