Environmental Law News

JAKARTA — Bali’s mangrove-rich Benoa Bay is now legally off-limits for any reclamation or development activities, following the government’s designation of the area as a maritime conservation zone. Spanning some…

This story was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. I. The movement begins Late one rainy night in August 2013, a college student named Collin…

JAKARTA — At least three companies whose concessions were burned in the 2015 fires that razed huge swaths of forest in Indonesia are also caught up in this year’s fires,…

It was a sunny afternoon in Tobelo, a town on the eastern Indonesian island of Halmahera, when I met the late Den Upa Rombelayuk, a Torajan woman from the neighboring…

JAKARTA — Indonesian lawmakers have chosen not to pass a raft of controversial legislation that critics say would dismantle environmental and social protections, in the face of massive student-led protests.…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

PEKANBARU, Indonesia — September 16 was a happy day for Evan Zendrato and Lasma Yani Zega. The young couple gave birth to a boy weighing 2.8 kilograms (6.1 pounds). They…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s parliament is rushing to pass a controversial bill on coal and mineral mining before the current legislators’ term ends on Sept. 30, defying a massive public outcry…

SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s wildfire emergency has spread to the part of eastern Borneo where President Joko Widodo wants to relocate the nation’s capital. On Aug. 26, President Widodo announced…

JAKARTA — Laode Muhammad Syarif has been spearheading a critical war against corruption in Indonesia for the past four years. Since December 2015, he’s served as a leader of the…

During Climate Week, starting September 22 at the UN in New York City, interfaith leaders will unveil the Faiths for Forests Declaration, with a call to political action by global congregations.

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project.  When a string of palm oil companies arrived in the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua…

Subsidizing burning wood for energy as having zero emissions puts us at risk of overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.

ROKO-ROKO, Indonesia — Residents of this village on the island of Wawonii look like they’re preparing for a battle. Men with chainsaws guard four jerry-rigged huts they’ve built to protect…

Beekeepers fear an even greater die-off from 2020 onward, as Bolsonaro government approves a swath of pesticides, including those known to be toxic to bees.

KOH KONG, Cambodia — In a rare ruling, a court in Cambodia has decided to acquit a Spanish environmental activist charged with incitement, the state’s default accusation against most forms…

MANILA — Who speaks up in court for a dolphin or a turtle when its habitat gets polluted? Does an animal even have the right to legal redress in such…

From August 17-28, the global community convenes in Geneva for the meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild…

TAPUWATU, Indonesia — Muhammad Arfa says he thinks a miracle saved his home. A wave of mud that swept through this riverside village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when…

JAKARTA — A ban on single-use plastics on the Indonesian island of Bali will stay in place, after the country’s top court rejected a challenge by the plastic-recycling industry. The…