Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), human rights abuses at sea and the collapse of ocean ecosystems are fundamentally intertwined. Fish populations have rapidly declined globally, with 35% of fish…
Canned tuna is trending in the U.S. again: after a tail-off in its consumption in the three decades through 2016, the cheap and shelf-stable protein’s popularity surged during the COVID-19…
JAKARTA — Fisheries and human rights observers in Indonesia are calling for a revamp of the country’s fisher training program ahead of a scheduled evaluation of measures to protect maritime…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is forging bilateral agreements to protect the rights of its citizens working on fishing boats under other countries’ flags, in a bid to tackle labor…
On April 10, 2019, a fishing vessel known as Da Wang left Taiwan to sail out into distant waters in search of tuna. Two months into the voyage, a disturbance…
“How do we tell the stories of people that history forgets and the present avoids?” journalist-turned-author Jori Lewis asks in the preface to her debut book, Slaves for Peanuts: A…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has issued a much-anticipated decree to boost the protection of Indonesian deckhands working aboard foreign commercial and fishing vessels. The move comes in response to a pending…
Lower incomes and loss of employment were among the most urgent issues faced by fishing and seafood-processing workers in Asia and the Pacific during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an…
Smelters and manufacturers that use coltan, tin and tungsten in cars, mobile devices and other electronics can't be sure the minerals have been extracted without using children or forced…
JAKARTA — A sting by anti-corruption officers in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province has uncovered evidence that a powerful local official allegedly used slave labor on his oil palm plantation. Agents…
In 2021, Mongabay’s investigative journalism set out to hold powerful figures accountable for deforestation and pollution, and the mistreatment of vulnerable communities trying to protect local ecosystems. Using data-driven analysis…
Workers at Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, had up to 30% of their wages deducted to pay for the use of portable harvesting machines that pull coffee tree branches to take the beans.
This story won an Excellence in Investigative Reporting award from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) in 2022. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia | 阅读中文版 | 日本語で読む) When Sepri was…
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…
JAKARTA — A coalition of NGOs has documented rampant labor abuses in five oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the commodity. The palm oil…
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested and charged six executives from local recruitment agencies linked to the forced labor endured by 22 Indonesians on board two Chinese fishing boats.…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities say they’re still waiting for China’s response to a request to turn over a witness in an investigation into alleged human trafficking that led to the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is considering a ban to prevent its citizens going abroad to work on foreign fishing vessels, after the latest report that one of them had died and…
JAKARTA — Conservationists are calling for an investigation into alleged illegal fishing by a Chinese tuna company that kept Indonesian seamen as virtual slaves, leading to the deaths of four…
As people around the globe stock their pantries for long stretches at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of tinned tuna are going through the roof. In the U.S., consumption…
On Jan. 31, Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF), one of the top three global tuna traders, bought U.S. canned-tuna brand Bumble Bee Foods for $928 million. Bumble Bee,…
KUTA, Indonesia — D, 28-year-old Indonesian man, was witness to a deadly assault on a fellow boat crew member by the captain when they worked aboard the Taiwanese fishing vessel…
Raid rescues 18 workers from Minas Gerais farm holding good practice seals. Starbucks denies buying beans there in recent years, though its certifier approved the farm.
JAKARTA — PepsiCo has suspended its business with Indofood Agri Resources (IndoAgri), one of the largest palm oil companies in Indonesia, citing sustainability and labor rights concerns. PepsiCo, the U.S.-based…
JAKARTA – For almost a decade, Bambang has labored on an oil palm estate owned by the Salim Group conglomerate in North Sumatra. Every day, he and his wife rise…
This story is the fourth in a four-part series on slave labor practices at logging camps in Pará, Brazil, produced by Repórter Brasil. Click the following links to access the first, second,…
This story is the third in a four-part series on slave labor practices at logging camps in Pará, Brazil, produced by Repórter Brasil; their Portuguese version of this story can…
This story was produced by Repórter Brasil through on-the-ground observations and interviews with local sources and labor inspectors during a one-year investigation of slave labor practices at logging camps in…
This story is the first in a four-part series on slave labor practices at logging camps in Pará, Brazil, produced by Repórter Brasil; their Portuguese version of this story can…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Sumatra is haunted by a raft of environmental problems. There are the annual fires that burn across the island’s vast peat swamp zones, which have been widely…
