JAKARTA — A part of the only forest on Earth where rhinos, tigers, orangutans and elephants coexist is seeing a resumption of deforestation for an oil palm concession. Indonesian company…
LINGE, Indonesia — Indonesian coffee farmers on the island of Sumatra have spoken out against a plan to mine for gold in an area that overlaps with one of the…
JAKARTA — Deforestation inside Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, declined in 2021 to its lowest level in seven years, following a surge in…
JAKARTA — Conservation officials in Indonesia have broken ground on a new sanctuary for Sumatran rhinos, part of ongoing efforts to breed the critically endangered species in captivity and stave…
Indonesia is today home to the last holdout populations of Sumatran rhinos, a species that once ranged across much of southern Asia. Official figures, which paint a more optimistic picture…
JAKARTA — A major palm oil company supplying to global brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo continues to source the raw commodity from plantations responsible for deforesting prime orangutan habitat in…
Rudi Putra is well-known in Indonesia’s conservation world. Born in 1977 in Aceh Tamiang district, in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, Rudi has been working on preserving…
Conservationists trying to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction face a critical dilemma: In seeking to build a robust captive-breeding program, should the healthiest, most fertile rhinos be left in…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — For the rhinos of Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, snare traps set by poachers are a key factor that threatens to drive them closer to extinction. The Leuser…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Conservationists are calling for a Sumatran rhino habitat at the northern tip of the Indonesian island to be fully protected from planned road-construction projects. Officials in…
JAKARTA — Palm oil from a company that burned a pristine orangutan habitat in Sumatra has entered the global market due to an oversight, possibly ending up in products made…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Wildlife poaching is on the rise in a key Sumatran habitat that’s home to some of the rarest species on Earth. But hunters in the Leuser…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A court in Indonesia has annulled a permit allowing the development of a $3 billion hydropower plant in a forest that’s home to critically endangered tigers,…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to build a third sanctuary for the captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos, a species on the brink of extinction. The proposed facility will be…
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…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia have blamed poachers for the death of an elephant found with one of its tusks hacked off, in one of the world’s most…
A mining project in Indonesia's Leuser Ecosytem that has for years pitted environmental activists and local residents against mineral mining company PT Wanyang Mining Gayoindo (PT WMG) appears to have…
Indonesia's Leuser Ecosystem — one of the largest expanses of tropical rainforest in the world and an ecological hotspot celebrated as the last place on earth where orangutans, rhinos, tigers…
Five years ago, there were likely very few people outside of Indonesia who'd ever heard of a place called the Leuser ecosystem. Today, this enormous and besieged tropical rainforest on…