JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has still not made publicly available its detailed maps and related documents on plantation companies operating in the country, a year after the nation’s highest…
Tens of thousands of indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon have been fighting decades of contamination of their natural resources by foreign and domestic oil companies. Oil spills, leaky pipelines,…
JAKARTA — A team of scientists from Indonesia, Germany and the Netherlands has won a competition two years in the making to come up with a fast, accurate and cost-effective…
JAKARTA — Zely Ariane, an editor at the Tabloid Jubi newspaper in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, gets frustrated each time an acquaintance travels there and asks to meet up…
JAKARTA — The daunting task of mapping Indonesia’s vast peatlands in painstaking detail has entered the home stretch, as competing proposals vie for selection as the standard to be adopted…
Imagine you needed to map the spread of an invasive plant species in a tropical forest. Hyperspectral imaging and LiDAR are great at identifying vegetation, but have their limitations and…
The Brazilian Amazon lost 184 km2 of forest in December 2017, according to the country’s Institute of Man and the Environment of the Amazon (Imazon). The data, obtained exclusively by…
Technology is changing how we investigate and protect planet Earth. The increased portability and reduced cost of data collection and synthesis tools, for instance — from visual and acoustic sensors…
Where deforestation is widespread, sometimes it’s hard to see the (loss of) forest for the (loss of) trees. Global Forest Watch’s online forest change monitoring platform has added a new…
Technology above the clouds is helping scientists study sharks beneath the waves. A new initiative combines shark movement data with publicly available vessel identification data—both transmitted to researchers via satellite—to…
JAKARTA – Marsudi has mixed feelings about the visit earlier this month by Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to his small village of Nganduk in East Java province. On the…
A satellite-based alert system can now detect fine-scale deforestation in near-real time, enabling managers or rangers in tropical forests to respond to early stages of deforestation. Anyone can now register…
Yesterday The Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation unveiled an ambitious plan to protect and connect 50 percent of the world’s land area as part of a broader effort to curb global warming,…
A team of biologists and computer scientists plan to map a global “safety net” for Planet Earth. The mapping effort, to be led by Washington, D.C.-based non-profit research organization RESOLVE…
Across the swath of vertebrate lifeforms that inhabit Earth, scientists have a pretty good idea about where most of the known land mammals, birds and amphibians live. That makes identifying…
Colombia is home to more bird species than any other country on Earth. It’s also well-known for a long-simmering conflict that has only recently begun to cool. Now, a pair…
Few people get to witness the breadth and wonder of underwater life, from coral to kelp to fish and sea anemones. SCUBA divers gain a unique view of not only…
JAKARTA — Not everyone supports the Indonesian government’s decision to publish information on the location of fishing boats in its waters, via data mapping platform Global Fishing Watch, accessible to…
A multi-national research team combined four diverse data sets to understand where migratory birds are most vulnerable to human activity and to identify priorities for protecting long-distance migrants in the…
JAKARTA -- Indonesia, a country known for its annual forest and peat fires, is overhauling its peatland management policies, an effort triggered by the great fires of 2015. 2015 was…
KAPUAS HULU, Indonesia -- Mateus Liung headed to the Tanjung village hall just as dusk started to gather. A walking stick in his right hand supported his now-fragile legs. A…
How many species are living on Earth at this moment in time? Ask a few different scientists and you may get drastically different answers. Most estimates range from 3-10 million…
Habitat loss, over-hunting and climate change are just a few of the human-induced changes to the Earth that biologists say are driving the planet’s “sixth mass extinction.” Research has shown…
This is My Backyard (TIMBY) digital tools support safe reporting and story-telling for addressing conflict-prone issues around the globe.
Researchers compared historical elephant movement corridors to current corridors from GPS data to determine the impact of human encroachment on elephants’ movement patterns in northern Tanzania.
Why track wild animals? How do wildlife biologists know where animals go and the resources they use? They watch them over sometimes extended periods. For millennia, people have watched animals…
Borneo– it is a name that evokes images of a faraway island, resplendent with tall trees, thick jungle, diverse cultural traditions, and many strange and wonderful animals, including proboscis monkeys,…
ASOLOKOBAL, Indonesia — Laurensius Lani’s footsteps can be heard at dawn alongside the traditional honay thatched-roof houses of the Baliem Valley, here in the archipelago country’s eastermost Papua province. This…
The Earth is losing species at a rate about a hundred times faster than historical (also called "background") levels. For specific groups, that number is higher still, with research indicating…
Indonesia’s highest court on Thursday ordered President Joko Widodo’s administration to hand over detailed maps of land on which oil palm companies have been licensed to operate, adding momentum to…
