JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have seized 72 highly prized hornbill casques and arrested a woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle them out of the country. The seizure occurred at…
The fall of the Suharto regime and the beginning of the democratic or reformasi era in Indonesia coincided with a massive surge in deforestation. One of the central reasons for…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Activists have lambasted the seemingly apathetic official response to the recent deaths of two children who drowned in abandoned mining pits in the Indonesian Bornean city of…
Borneo has been special to me since my earliest years. As a kid, I would voraciously read books about the wilds of Borneo, with its dense rainforests inhabited by traditional…
The island of Borneo is renowned by scientists for its biological bounty. From orangutans to pygmy elephants to towering dipterocarp trees, the forests of the world's third largest island are…
On May 27, Monday morning, I woke to the news that Tam, the last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia and the last known male Bornean rhino, had perished. As clichéd…
This week, the Indonesian electoral commission confirmed the results of the April 17 election that gave President Joko Widodo a solid victory over his challenger, former army special forces general…
JAKARTA — A logging prohibition in Indonesia aimed at protecting peatlands threatens a supply crunch for two of the world’s biggest paper producers that could drive them to source wood…
JAKARTA — A new documentary film that shows the links between Indonesian coal and energy companies and the country’s political elite has been released online ahead of the world’s biggest…
JAKARTA — Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his challenger in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, have both vowed to increase the use of palm oil in biofuels to achieve energy…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and his rival in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, are expected to address the issues of environmental protection and management during the second of…
JAKARTA — A slowdown in both the expansion of industrial plantations and forest loss across Borneo in 2017 provides strong evidence of a correlation between the two. The findings are…
JAKARTA — Road projects throughout Indonesian Borneo threaten to fragment a third of the forest habitat currently accessible to the island’s wildlife, according to a new study. Completion of ongoing…
“It was very peculiar,” says Anne Russon, a primatologist and psychology professor from York University, Toronto, recalling her 2010 study of orangutans in Indonesia's Kutai National Park. Having previously worked…
Social anthropologist Liana Chua leads a project, POKOK, that aims to reduce the killing of orangutans in Indonesian Borneo through deeper engagement with local people. The project came about as…
In 1982, an orangutan researcher working in Indonesian Borneo wrote to a colleague at the biology department at the National University in Jakarta. He told of meeting a traditional-medicine trader…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has published a long-awaited map that, for the first time, unifies all land-use data from a host of disparate sources. The fractured nature of the…
JAKARTA — Conservationists have captured a wild Sumatran rhinoceros in Indonesian Borneo and relocated it to a breeding center — a key step toward saving the critically endangered species. The…
JAKARTA — Central African countries are taking a lesson from the experiences of Indonesia, suffering from one of the world’s highest deforestation rates, as they look to protect their own…
JAKARTA — Pledges by major brands to stop buying palm oil from companies known to destroy rainforests have failed to stop the clearance of a total area of forest the…
Capturing Sumatran rhinos was one thing. Keeping them alive turned out to be another thing entirely.
This is the first article in our four-part series “The Rhino Debacle." It’s hardly the most likely place to meet a Sumatran rhino. But as you enter Zimmer Hall at…
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 — Paper giants Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL) are under fire for allegedly purchasing wood from plantation companies clearing rainforest in…
“We stayed quiet for a while because after the customary fine they never came back," said Markus, deputy head of the village council in Ongko Asa, a traditional Dayak village…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has expanded its list of wildlife species banned from trading and hunting for the first time in nearly two decades, bringing the total number of…
Selective logging—where specific high-value trees are cut—in tropical forests affects biodiversity, forest structure, and carbon storage. According to a 2009 study, timber was removed from over 20 percent of the…
JAKARTA — Oil palm plantations that adhere to the world’s leading certification scheme for the crop show no difference in environmental, social and economic sustainability than non-certified estates, a new…
An investigation by Mongabay has uncovered new evidence suggesting one of the world’s biggest paper producers, Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, took deliberate measures to disguise its ownership of a…
PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia are investigating the killing of a rare orangutan whose body was found riddled with bullet and knife wounds in an oil palm plantation…