Try to get your head around this one. There is this beautiful natural forest area in West Kalimantan, called Sungai Putri, which roughly translates as the River of the Princess.…
Among the World’s most controversial industries, palm oil production is once again in the headlines. The polarized rhetoric and contradictory claims – concerning who really did what and where –…
The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This change means that both species of orangutan now face an…
In late 2015, Indonesia featured heavily in the global headlines. Parts of the country were burning so badly that the fires were coined “the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st…
Environmental groups have raised concerns that Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s planned moratorium on new oil palm and mining concessions will have limited impact without hawkish enforcement by local governments…
Other stories in Mongabay's Conservation, Divided series: Part 2: How big donors and corporations shape conservation goals Part 3: Conservation today, the old-fashioned way Part 4: Conservation's people problem Epilogue: Conservation…
Reactions to Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s recently announced plan to ban new oil palm and mining permits were generally positive on Friday, with activists reminding him that the devil is…
OK, I will keep this short. Plenty has been said about the recent sad event in Indonesian Borneo. For those unaware of the story search the internet for “WWF”, “Kalimantan”, “Meijaard”,…
More companies are cutting back supplies from Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group after its suspension from the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, the RSPO. Hershey's, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Procter…
Smog from forest fires and hotspots continued to threaten air quality in parts of Indonesia's Sumatra on Friday as local authorities waited for the mid-April rainy season to arrive. The…
The death of an endangered Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Indonesian Borneo earlier this week sent the wildlife conservation community into deep mourning and raised questions about whether the animal…
One of the newly discovered Sumatran rhinos in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, died on Tuesday from a leg infection after being wounded by a snare. The critically endangered…
If demand for palm oil keeps growing the way it has been in Indonesia's eastern Kalimantan region, there might not be enough degraded land available in 2020 to prevent further deforestation…
In the wake of IOI Group's suspension from the the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, its customers Unilever, Kellogg and Mars have announced they will stop doing business…
On March 10, Indonesian activists won a major battle in the war for transparency over natural resources when their Supreme Court ordered the coal-happy Kutai Kartanegara district government to hand…
The green image of one of Malaysia’s largest conglomerates suffered a major blow on Friday with its suspension from the world’s largest association for ethical palm oil production, the RSPO.…
The number of hotspots across Indonesia's forests and peatlands increased to 76 across Kalimantan and Sumatra on Monday as authorities prepared for elevated risks of widespread fires in the coming…
Indonesia’s environment and forestry ministry will convert a former gold mining site into a sanctuary for the Sumatran rhinoceros in East Kalimantan province, after conservationists identified 15 of the critically…
Want to make a million dollars? Find the most efficient way to map Indonesia’s peatlands. That’s the ticket to winning the Indonesian Peat Prize, announced by the cartographically challenged Southeast…
The leadership of Indonesia’s new peatlands restoration agency was rounded out on Friday, with the inauguration of five lieutenants to agency chief Nazir Foead. Hartono Prawiratmadja was named secretary. The…
The shocking image of a burnt orangutan mother and its baby this week really brought it home: All orangutans are Critically Endangered. This used to be the privileged status of…
The Indonesian government’s sustainable palm oil certification program announced the findings of a joint study with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil on Wednesday that details how the two systems…
Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil producer has officially signed on to a pledge whose signatories promise to purge their supply chains of deforestation, peatlands conversion and rights abuses. The company, Astra…
The Malaysian-owned palm oil company Genting Plantations has again been accused of clearing ecologically important secondary forest in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province according to a recent report by Greenomics that…
Part five in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, third and fourth installments. anks and investors are increasingly looking for ways to hold companies accountable for their…
The government of Norway announced on Wednesday it would continue its environmental funding partnership with Indonesia, offering $50 million to support the archipelago’s newly created Peat Restoration Agency. “This is…
by 4 February 2016
Last year some two million hectares of land in Indonesia went up in flames across Sumatra, Borneo, and the Western half of New Guinea. The conflagrations caused choking air pollution,…
Part four in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, third and fifth installments. he previous article in this series discussed the role of governments and regulators…
Part three in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, fourth and fifth installments. he question of materiality — whether an issue affects a company’s finances…
Part two in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, third, fourth and fifth installments. vidence suggests that environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk assessment…
