The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
JAKARTA — Prosecutors in Indonesia have arrested a prominent economist in an ongoing investigation into why the world’s top producer of palm oil is suffering a domestic shortage of cooking…
For the first time, a portion of the EU government has challenged the sustainability of burning forest biomass to make energy, a controversial policy pushed by the forestry industry but condemned by environmentalists.
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have seized 2 metric tons of ivory in the city of Lubumbashi, a hub for ivory trafficking. The May 14 seizure is one…
Trade in endangered species online is an increasingly popular avenue for traders and traffickers. A recent review, published in the journal Oryx, highlights a related trend: lesser-known species that have…
After being stripped of her post for vigorously opposing mining in her community, a local official in the Philippine province of Palawan is heading back to City Hall following a…
Lower incomes and loss of employment were among the most urgent issues faced by fishing and seafood-processing workers in Asia and the Pacific during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an…
Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning biomass, such as wood pellets, to make energy, with potentially adverse impacts on the global climate, deforestation and biodiversity.
ANTANANARIVO — During the current shrimping season, 39 trawlers will catch just over 4,000 metric tons of shrimp in Madagascar's waters. But one company, with a five-year exploitation right, didn’t…
Smelters and manufacturers that use coltan, tin and tungsten in cars, mobile devices and other electronics can't be sure the minerals have been extracted without using children or forced…
JAKARTA — The office of the Indonesian ombudsman says it has found indications of maladministration in the government’s decision to revoke hundreds of logging, plantation and mining permits across the…
Ban Khao Mo, THAILAND — Standing in the house where she has lived since she was born 45 years ago, Premsinee Suntornthammathat points to the temple where her grandparents took…
Ida Yellowman stood at the top of Muley Point, seeing memories in every cardinal direction. To the north was Bears Ears and the Abajo Mountains, rock-strewn landscape where she first…
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has announced that his department will be undertaking a first-of-its-kind investigation to determine the role that the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries have played in…
JAKARTA — A court in Jakarta has rejected a lawsuit by a remote island community against a gold-mining operation that overlaps onto their villages, in a ruling deemed “problematic” by…
JAKARTA — Indonesian coal mining company Bayan Resources has challenged the government's decision to revoke its permits and effectively shrink its concession area. The legal challenge is the latest in…
How do you justify tearing down the world’s greatest rainforest for agribusiness? Pretend it’s not a rainforest. That appears to be the thinking behind a bill introduced into Brazil’s lower…
Papua New Guinea’s environment minister has imposed a moratorium on new voluntary carbon credit schemes to give the government time to create a regulatory framework for future and existing deals.…
Amid lockdowns, travel restrictions and wet market closures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, wildlife traders shifted their business online. A trade once dominated by face-to-face interactions now sees sellers and…
As thousands of people protested in Brazil’s capital against a “death package” of bills deemed anti-environmental and anti-Indigenous, the lower house of Congress agreed to fast-track one of those bills,…
The EU remains committed to burning forests to make energy, despite conclusive scientific evidence of its climate destabilizing impacts. In a new strategy, forest advocates plan to take the EU to court to fight that policy.
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s former fisheries minister has had his jail sentence for corruption slashed by nearly half after an appeals court ruled that he had “done good work” while in…
Since October 2020, Thailand's national parks authority has demolished or ordered the demolition of more than 20 luxury mansions, resorts and tourist hotels illegally built in national parks throughout the…
JAYAPURA, Indonesia, and NEW YORK — A palm oil firm that was among more than 100 companies targeted in a mass cancellation of permits for plantations by Indonesia’s environment ministry…
NAIROBI — In November 2021, the Kenyan parliament proposed a bill that would effectively eliminate the Kenya Forest Service’s (KFS) role as an intermediary between petitioners and parliament in requests to…
Brazil’s lower house of congress has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would loosen regulations for the use of pesticides, raising concerns that approval in the Senate would unleash further environmental…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has opened itself up to litigation by unilaterally revoking hundreds of permits for logging concessions, plantations and mines, according to environmental law experts. The revocations…
At the end of January, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Africa (ReconAfrica) discreetly announced it expected approvals shortly for a second seismic survey and the drilling of three to…
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala – An Indigenous community engaged in a decades-long struggle for land rights in Guatemala is bringing its battle to an international court this week in a case…
Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs snubbed new evidence of uncontacted Indigenous groups found by two expeditions in the Amazon last year, heightening concerns about political interference in the government…
