MANOKWARI, Indonesia — High in the northwestern mountains of Indonesia’s West Papua province, the newly established Pegunungan Arfak district has a bold idea: Its leaders hope to achieve economic prosperity…
On Sept. 19, Indonesian President Joko Widodo slapped a three-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for oil palm plantations. The moratorium was introduced to “improve governance of sustainable…
November 6 is the UN’s International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. A decade after a tragic war in Liberia that was largely…
MADRE DE DIOS, Peru — On the shores of Las Piedras River, in the small port of Sabaluyoc in southeastern Peru’s Madre de Dios region, a group of loggers has…
Gabon's President Ali Bongo announced on September 26, during a visit to a Rougier wood processing plant, that all forest concessions in Gabon will have to be certified with the…
BOVEN DIGOEL, Indonesia — It’s a hot and humid morning, and birds and insects are chirping deep in a lush rainforest in the eastern Indonesian province of Papua. All of…
JAKARTA — The last place on Earth that’s home to wild tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants may lose these and countless other species to make way for a $3 billion…
Logging in the Solomon Islands, a small country of 667,000 people in the South Pacific, is decimating natural forests there at around 19 times the rate considered sustainable, the watchdog…
Five communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the more than 10,000 residents who call them home, now have legal control of the forests on which they depend.…
JAKARTA — A prominent environmental expert in Indonesia faces a lawsuit by a palm oil company after testifying against its practices, in the second case of its kind this year.…
BARU PENINSULA, Colombia — A 50-minute drive from Cartagena, the most important tourist city in Colombia, is a place that preserves the colors and sounds of biodiversity. A two-hour stroll…
Large landscapes of intact tropical forests will figure prominently in global strategies to avert catastrophic climate change and conserve biodiversity. In this context, the extensive forests of Papua and West…
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is sounding the alarm over what it calls a “shadowy agreement” made by the Myanmar government to allow the logging and export of 5,000…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has signed a moratorium on new licenses for oil palm plantations. The presidential instruction, signed on Sept. 19, will remain in place for no more than…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — For those worried about the plight of the Sumatran tiger, of which only a few hundred remain, concern typically flows from a sense that all life is…
Although expansion of oil palm plantations appears to be inevitable, regulators have options when deciding what land may be converted into the world's most widely planted vegetable oil crop. A…
One of Indonesia’s biggest family-owned firms is facing fresh criticism over its alleged failure to comply with its sustainability commitments as part of its palm oil operations in Liberia. Golden…
MALANG, Indonesia — Wildfires are sweeping across a savanna and protected rainforest in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in Java, home to one of the world’s rarest leopard subspecies and…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s top court is reviewing a lawsuit filed in 2016 by environmental activists calling on the government to pass regulations on forest fires, as the dry season ushers…
JAKARTA — Last year the inhabitants of Konbaki village in the Indonesian island province of East Nusa Tenggara filed a request to farm some 174 hectares, about 430 acres, of…
