Deforestation in Riau. Photo by Rhett Butler Roughly half of Indonesia's natural forest loss occurs outside officially designated concession areas, concludes a new assessment that also finds higher deforestation rates…
Bimo. Photo by: Gonçalo M. Rosa. Meet Bimo Kencana Arief. At 13 years old, this Indonesian middle school student is not spending his afternoons doing homework, helping around the house,…
Recent deforestation for palm oil production within Aceh's Leuser Ecosystem. Taken in May 2014 by Rhett A. Butler In the run-up to the tenth anniversary of the devastating 2004 tsunami,…
Reforestation project using native tree species in Borneo. Indonesia’s new government has ambitious reforestation plans. President Joko Widodo’s election campaign included a commitment to reforest 2 million hectares of degraded…
The Indonesian government has agreed on reference levels for measuring reductions in emissions from deforestation and forest and peatland degradation, reports Antara. The Forest Reference Emission Levels (FREL) will be…
Recent large-scale clearance of peatland forest inside a PT. Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (PT RAPP) pulpwood concession on Pulau Pedang. © Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace. Asia Pacific Resources International…
Rainforest in Riau. Photos by Rhett Butler Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned the former Minister of Forestry about his role in altering zoning to facilitate oil palm expansion into…
Peat forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photos by Rhett Butler. Indonesia's new Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar imposed a moratorium on the issuance of all new logging…
Damage from coal mining in East Kalimantan. Photo: Hendar Reclamation of over 830,000 hectares of abandoned mines has yet to begin in East Kalimantan, Indonesia--despite a provincial law passed over…
Butchered manta rays at Tanjung Luar, Lombok. Photo: Paul Hilton / WCS In the largest confiscation in Indonesia to date, authorities seized 103kg of manta gills in Bali, and arrested…
Adult male Sumatran orangutan in Gunung Leuser NP. Photos by Rhett Butler. A forest that is the only place where rhinos, tigers, elephants, and orangutans coexist is under threat from…
Illegal oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Butler. Newly elected Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo announced on October 26th that the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry…
Infant macaque in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Sixty-eight percent of malaria hospitalizations in Malaysia last year were caused by a once-rare strain of the disease traditionally limited…
The former bauxite mine site of PT Karya Utama Tambang Jaya (KUTJ) near Sekucing Labai village in Simpang Hulu, Ketapang, West Kalimantan. Photo: RPHK A Harita group mining company in…
Confiscated tiger parts and suspects. Photo by the WCS Wildlife Crimes Unit. Two online merchants of tiger parts have been arrested in Indonesia. The bust was the result of a…
Agam, the baby elephant. Photo by Yuliannova Lestari/Indonesia Sahabat Gajah. Agam, an orphaned two year old Sumatran elephant, died over the weekend presumably from injuries suffered during a fall last…
Cleared forest in Indonesia. Indonesia's newly elected president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has merged the country's ministries of forestry and environment into a single entity and installed a woman at its…
Indonesia Chamber of Commerce plans to lobby for expansion of sustainable business practices Four of Indonesia’s largest palm oil producers signed a landmark commitment in New York in September to…
What do the climate and orangutans have in common? They are both threatened by coal - the first by burning it, and the second by mining it. At the recent…
Flat-headed cat and fishing cat require immediate research and conservation attention. It's no secret that when it comes to the wild cats of Asia—and, really, cats in general—tigers get all…
Indonesian govt won't allow palm oil companies to protect forests Oil palm plantation in Borneo. A law passed by the Indonesian government last month makes it even more difficult for…
Mine located near and within pristine forest, company asserts precautions will be taken to protect surrounding environment Global miner BHP Billiton and Indonesian partner PT Adaro are developing what could…
Of Indonesia’s 100 GW in new power generation capacity by 2035, half will be coal-fired, says IEA. Indonesia cannot build power stations fast enough. And neither can most of its…
Indonesia's rate of forest loss is now the highest in the world. A concerted push by political elites to undermine Indonesia's president before he even takes office could stymie progress…
Oil palm plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia Palm oil production has been spectacularly profitable but ecologically disastrous across Southeast Asia, consuming millions of hectares of indigenous lands, rainforests, and peatlands in…
21 million hectares earmarked for coal mining, including more than half of East Kalimantan Out of the jungles of East Borneo in Indonesia comes the fire that fuels Asia’s burgeoning…
Peatlands drained for a plantation in Riau. An inter-agency audit of 17 plantation and timber concessions in Riau Province, Indonesia, found that every company is failing to meet fire prevention…
Oil palm company PT. Kallista Alam has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court continuing the closely-watched legal battle set to redefine Indonesia's commitment to environmental justice. Lawyers for the…
This is the second of a two-part series, Part I of which overviews the status of Bornean orangutans in southern Kalimantan. Two decades ago, a project to convert one million…
This is the first part of a two-part series, the second of which goes more in-depth about the efforts to connect habitat fragments and help secure the future of the…
