JAKARTA — Conservation authorities in Indonesia are investigating the death of an orangutan whose headless and apparently tortured body was found earlier this week in a river in central Borneo.…
JAKARTA — 2017 saw Indonesia once again fulfilling its economic development potential. The Southeast Asian nation started out the year with mixed superlatives: home to the third-largest stretch of tropical…
PUNAN ADIU, Indonesia — It’s no ordinary day here in the tiny village of Punan Adiu, tucked away in the northeastern corner of Indonesian Borneo. Devit, 9, is rushing off…
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Activists in Indonesia have called for the government to issue a new regulation aimed at better protecting the country’s karsts, the unique rocky landscapes that are home…
JAKARTA — Tens of thousands of birds, many of them protected species on the brink of extinction, are being openly traded in Indonesian Borneo, in the first clear picture to…
The Indonesian government will next year launch a 10-year program to save the critically endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a bird driven to the verge of extinction because of poaching…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Officials in Indonesia’s coal-rich province of East Kalimantan have announced the revocation of more than 400 mining permits, as part of ongoing efforts to clean up the industry.…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has relinquished control over nine tracts of forest to the indigenous communities that have lived there for generations, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced at a…
A fragile consensus to capture more rhinos has finally been reached, but one major roadblock remains: Indonesian officials.
Two decades after the catastrophic Indonesian wildfires of 1998-9, writer and artist Khairani Barokka revisits her feelings about the disaster in a book-length poem that highlights environmental degradation and indigenous…
A conservation area in western Borneo holds an unexpectedly rich population of the helmeted hornbill, a bird driven close to extinction by poaching for its distinctive casqued beak, a field…
JAKARTA — A district chief from Indonesian Borneo has been named a corruption suspect over the issuance of an oil palm plantation permit, opening the door for law enforcers to…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Activists in eastern Borneo suspect that an Irrawaddy dolphin found dead on a local beach last month had probably been snagged in a fishing net. This is…
Despite decades of hard environmental battle against deforestation, tropical forest losses continue unabated. Forests are cut down to make way for cattle-grazing land, oil palm plantations or other non-forests uses.…
Four fifths of wild orangutans in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, live outside national parks and other protected areas, according to a new study by the Indonesian government. The…
Transport infrastructure is a key part of Kalimantan's development plans, but conservationists fear a planned bridge in Balikpapan will have devastating environmental impacts.
Over the past half century, we've laid waste to the rainforests of Borneo. Fed by our insatiable demand for food, fuel, and fiber, vast tracts of cathedral-like landscape across the…
CENTRAL KALIMANTAN, Indonesian Borneo — Dense vegetation presses up to the banks of the Lamandau River, with tree branches dropping low overhead to form a natural tunnel. Occasionally, the calls…
After coming under public scrutiny, Central Kalimantan Governor Sugianto Sabran halted the construction of a railroad being built to transport coal through forested areas of the province. The governor's decision…
Hundreds of abandoned open-pit coal mines pockmark the landscape of East Kalimantan Province in Indonesian Borneo. Indonesian law requires mining companies to fill in pits that are no longer in…
"The Santan River is the lifeblood of the people of Santan Ilir, Santan Tengah and Santan Hulu villages,” said student activist Taufik Inskander (26), sitting on the veranda of his…
Ever since the palm oil industry started its industrial-scale expansion in South-East Asia it has been under pressure from environmental activists and NGOs for its negative impacts. Much of that…
Continued from part III. After four days of sailing up the fast-flowing Mahakam we arrive in the village of Laham, not far from the end point of Raven’s trip. In…
Continued from part 2. We have now entered the taller forest parts of the Mahakam area. The river sides are covered in increasingly dense forests and villages are few and…
Continued from part 1. We sail until 10 at night and tie up the boat near the mouth of the Kedang Kepala River in the town of Muara Kaman. This…
Samarinda, East Kalimantan, Indonesia - 13 November 2016. We drive to Samarinda, the riverside capital of East Kalimantan Province in Indonesian Borneo, on a cloudy but warm day. Our boat,…
"Everywhere you look, it's the infrastructure that's very often the first stage in complete profound change," explains William Laurance. Laurance is a Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University in…
Indonesia cannot be held liable for $2 billion in compensation sought by Churchill Mining for the revocation of a coal-mining concession, the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment…
The third largest orangutan population in West Kalimantan in danger of losing its home, warns Erik Meijaard, an ecologist with the Borneo Futures initiative.
It seems there is always something to take from the island of Kalimantan, Indonesia. The island, also known as Borneo, has already been vastly deforested — logged and cleared, mined…