JAKARTA — Suppliers to Indonesia’s biggest producer of pulpwood for paper cleared an area of carbon-rich peatland 10 times the size of New York City’s Central Park, in possible violation…
JAKARTA — Pollution from nearby coal-fired power plants is choking the citizens of Jakarta, slashing years off their life expectancy, and turning the city into one of the most polluted…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is pushing ahead with a plan to grow crops on a Puerto Rico-sized area of peatlands, despite criticism from experts and a history of similar…
JAKARTA — Milder weather is expected to bring about a less severe forest fire season across Indonesia this year compared to 2019. But cutbacks to fire-prevention measures as a result…
JAKARTA — Nyoman Suryadiputra says he still vividly remembers the time he traveled deep into the heart of the lush tropical peat forests of Indonesian Borneo in 1996 to document…
JAKARTA — Forest fires are starting to break out in parts of Indonesia as the dry season gets underway, threatening to compound respiratory illnesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Fires have…
JAKARTA — Indonesian President Joko Widodo has demanded accountability from his top officials over the land and forest fires that hit the country last year, as the government braces for…
JAKARTA — The fires that raze vast swaths of Indonesian Borneo every year are having a lasting health impact on the region’s critically endangered orangutans that threatens them with extinction,…
JAKARTA — Land and forest fires in Indonesia cost the country $5.2 billion in damage and economic losses this year, equivalent to 0.5% of its economy, according to a new…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has attempted to downplay the scale of its land and forest fires this year by saying things weren’t as bad as in the Amazon or…
JAKARTA — The toxic haze that swept across large swaths of Southeast Asia this year from forest and land fires in Indonesia could become a common phenomenon if two of…
JAKARTA — Fires from land and forest fires across Indonesia this year have pumped at least 708 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — almost double the emissions…
JAKARTA — Indonesian forensics expert Bambang Hero Saharjo has been awarded a top environmental prize for his work in delivering justice against oil palm plantations accused of allowing fires on…
JAKARTA — The makers of Oreo cookies and KitKat chocolate bars are among the companies getting some of their palm oil from producers linked to the fires that have razed…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Aerial images taken last month in the southern part of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island show wildfires burning through peat forests and producing clouds of toxic smoke. Peatlands in…
JAKARTA — Fires in Indonesia have razed an area the size of Puerto Rico, following a sharp spike in burning in September. The fires this year, the worst since 2015,…
As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.
UPANG CERIA/GELEBAK DALAM, Indonesia — Boat drivers sometimes decide not to work when the smoke is thick on the Musi River out of fear of a dangerous collision. For the…
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,…
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…
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 — Indonesia’s president has admitted negligence on the part of the government, as top officials engage in a blame game amid the worst spate of forest fires since 2015…
A landmark pledge known as the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) aimed at stopping the loss and degradation of forests is falling short of its goals, according to a…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s environment minister risks undermining the country’s credibility if she continues denying, in the face of overwhelming data, that haze from Indonesian forest fires is affecting neighboring Malaysia…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Clouds of haze have blanketed parts of Jambi province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, as slash-and-burn clearing to make way for oil palm plantations rages on.…
Hotspots signaling fires in Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra have increased nearly sevenfold over a four-day period in September, according to official reports. The national disaster management agency on Sept. 2…
Three years after forest fires in Indonesia sent huge volumes of smoke billowing into Malaysia and Singapore, the Southeast Asian neighbors are dealing with a repeat of the “embarrassing” transboundary…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a ruling holding the government, including the president, liable for the disastrous forest fires and resultant haze that blanketed large swaths of the…
JAKARTA — Ni Komang Ayu Leona Wirawan left her hometown of Klungkung, on the island of Bali, for Jakarta on neighboring Java three years ago to attend law school. The…
Helping the Indonesian government prosecute companies accused of environmental crimes is a risky job. Last year, Bambang Hero Saharjo, the Indonesian environment ministry’s chief expert witness against plantation companies accused…
