Dramatic images of orangutans being rescued from clear-cut forests are ubiquitous on the web and in nature magazines, but new research suggests that rather than being a crucial tool for…
JAKARTA — Two people have died in a series of land disputes between major companies and rural communities in Indonesia. Activists have denounced the escalation in the conflicts, saying businesses…
JAKARTA — More fertile female Sumatran rhinos should be captured from the wild for breeding programs to save the species, scientists say, citing the prevalence of reproductive problems. Working specifically…
JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia have jailed three indigenous farmers for allegedly stealing oil palm fruit from a plantation company that is itself accused of stealing their land. Police in…
Logging for timber by definition reduces tree cover. But what happens when logging stops? A new study has found that in concessions where timber firms have stopped operating, deforestation actually…
PONTIANAK, Indonesia — As the forests of Indonesian Borneo burned during fires last year, a female orangutan was forced to leave her burning home. When she was rescued from a…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Major flooding from just a few hours of heavy rain in Samarinda, Indonesia’s coal-mining capital, has underscored the severity of the environmental degradation being carried out by…
JAKARTA — The acrimonious end to a partnership between WWF and Indonesia’s environment ministry threatens to derail a crucial program to breed Sumatran rhinos in captivity, widely seen as the…
Philip Jacobson, an American editor for the non-profit environmental news platform Mongabay, was deported from Indonesia today, January 31, more than six weeks after authorities in the city of Palangkaraya…
Mongabay editor Philip Jacobson has now been detained for 42 days in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan over an alleged violation of his business visa. "Phil is still under 'city arrest' in…
"Mongabay staffer Philip Jacobson was just moved from prison to 'city detention' in Palangkaraya," said Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler on January 24, 2020. "We are grateful that…
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,…
[UPDATE] 1/31/2020 - Philip Jacobson was deported from Indonesia today, with the original charge against him dismissed. Read more here. Philip Jacobson, an award-winning editor for the environmental science news outlet…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have called on the Indonesian government to swiftly crack down on plantation companies operating in protected forests, after the country’s highest court ruled such activities illegal.…
JAKARTA — The oil palm processing industry has become the biggest threat to the iconic and endangered proboscis monkeys of Indonesian Borneo, a new study has found. The study, published…
JAKARTA — Activists say they’ve identified the business tycoons who control land in the area slated for Indonesia’s new capital and who could potentially benefit from the $33.5 billion mega…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Two abandoned open-pit coal mines, each of which has claimed the life of a child in Indonesia’s Eastern Kalimantan province, have been earmarked for restoration efforts led…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists in Indonesia have slammed a proposed zoning plan for coastal areas in eastern Borneo that they say will hurt the livelihoods of local fishing communities in…
JAKARTA — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia have charged two government officials for allegedly taking $1.6 million in bribes to grant permits for oil palm plantations spanning just over half the…
JAKARTA — Darwan Ali, an Indonesian politician at the center of a palm oil licensing scandal and charged in a separate corruption case, died on Nov. 18 before he could…
EAST LAMPUNG, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities will make their first attempt at in vitro fertilization of a Sumatran rhino, aiming to boost the critically endangered species’ gene pool in the…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has ordered palm oil company PT Arjuna Utama Sawit to pay the equivalent of $18.6 million in fines and damages for fires on its…
As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.
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…
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…
SAMARINDA/UJOH BILANG, Indonesia — For nearly a week this summer, the residents of Ujoh Bilang in Indonesian Borneo’s East Kalimantan province were virtually disconnected from the rest of the world.…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s new capital city will sit at the nexus of the country’s coal and oil hubs in eastern Borneo, the president revealed on Aug. 26. President Joko Widodo,…
With their ostentatious bills, often colorful plumage, raucous calls, and unusual behavioral traits, hornbills are arguably one of the most charismatic groups of birds in the tropics. While hornbills are…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s proposed new capital city on the island of Borneo will be built in just five years and without the need to raze any protected rainforest, a government…
In 2007, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched the Heart of Borneo, an initiative that aimed to conserve 22 million hectares (54 million acres) in the transboundary area…