New Guinea News

Satellite images highlighted last week by NASA reveal the rapid disappearance of Indonesia's only glaciers. The images, captured by the Thematic Mapper (TM) on Landsat 4 and Landsat 5, show…

Chart: Percent forest cover change in Indonesia and Malaysia between 2000 and 2010. Background satellite image courtesy of Google Earth, design by mongabay.com. Click image to enlarge. Indonesia and Malaysia…

100 percent of New Britain Palm Oil Limited's palm oil will be eco-certified, segregated, and fully traceable by the end of the year, reports the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil…

Aerial view of jungle and delta in Indonesian Papua. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A palm oil company has paid indigenous Moi landowners in Indonesian Papua a paltry $0.65 per…

The Bumblebee Gecko (Nactus kunan) from Manus Island off Papua New Guinea was discovered in 2010, and described as a new species in 2012. Photo by Robert Fisher of the…

A bulldozer rumbles over a recently deforested area in Pomio District, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Photo by: Paul Hilton/Greenpeace. Locals protesting the destruction of their forest in Papua…

Basamuk Bay in Madang, Papua New Guinea. Photo produced using Google Earth. A massive, controversial nickel mine has been shut down in Papua New Guinea due to the environmental concerns…

The MIFEE area as seen on Google Earth. More than 400,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land — including 350,000 hectares of peatland — in Indonesian New Guinea lost their…

Pristine coastal vegetation: Misool island, Raja Ampat. Photo by: Dimtry Telnov, 2009. Entomologist Dmitry Telnov hopes his new pet project will inspire and disseminate research about one of the world's…

The new species Paedophryne amauensis is the world's smallest vertebrate...so far. Photo from: Rittmeyer EN et al. (2012) Ecological Guild Evolution and the Discovery of the World's Smallest Vertebrate. PLoS…

A holotype of Paedophryne dekot (BPBM 37753), B paratype of Paedophryne dekot (BPBM 37754), C paratype of Paedophryne verrucosa (BPBM 37743), and D paratype of Paedophryne verrucosa (BPBM 37745). Image…

Often lauded as a model for conserving wild populations, breeding centers in Indonesia are shown to be actually worsening depletion of wildlife. Green tree python Breeding farms in Indonesia are…

Shell of the new micro-snail, Ditropopsis mirabilis. Photo by: Kristine Greke. A new species of snail with a bizarre shell has surprised scientists. Discovered near massive waterfalls in pristine lowland…

Re-examining beetle specimens from 19 museums has led to the discovery of 84 new beetle species in the Macratria genus. The new species span the islands of Indonesia, New Guinea,…

A new survey recorded 125 birds in Papua New Guinea's Waria Valley, of which an astounding 43 percent were endemic to the island. The survey, published in mongabay.com's open-access journal…

Eupholus schoenherri weevil near Manokwari in West Papua. Photo by Rhett Butler (2010). New Guinea is home to some of the world's most unusually colored weevil species. This particular species,…

In a landmark court decision a judge has slapped a logging company with a nearly $100 million (K225.5 million) fine for large-scale illegal logging. Last week, Malaysian timber company, Concord…

Varanus macraei monitor lizard © Lutz Obelgonner Scientists discovered more than 1,000 previously unknown species during a decade of research in New Guinea (slideshow), says a new report from WWF.…

Indonesia's sugar association is seeking 500,000 hectares of land for new sugar cane plantations in a bid to make the country self-sufficient in sugar production, reports Tempo Interactive. Suryo Alam,…

Papua New Guinea, as viewed from Google Earth, covers the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, as well as other Pacific Islands. The government of Papua New Guinea…

Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and…

Forests spanning an area larger than Costa Rica—5.6 million hectares (13.8 million acres)—have been handed out by the Papua New Guinea government to foreign corporations, largely for logging. Granted under…

Papua New Guinea, as viewed from Google Earth, covers the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, as well as other Pacific Islands. During a meeting in March 2011…

Perkebunan di luar Jayapura di Provinsi Papua. Gambar dari Google Earth / Maps Kementerian Kehutanan Republik Indonesia telah menyetujui konversi sekitar 3 juta hektar hutan alam di provinsi Papua, di…

Stopping logging for timber export and conversion of forest for oil palm plantations would cost Papua New Guinea roughly $1.8 billion dollars from 2012 to 2025, but would significantly reduce…

Plantations outside of Jayapura in Papua province. Images from Google Earth/Maps. Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry has approved conversion of some 3 million hectares of natural forest in Papua province, on…

This article—written in April 2010, updated in August 2010, and posted for the first time today—is part of larger "Fate of Forests" series. The commercial shows a typical office setting.…

Indonesia's Minister of Forestry granted nearly 3 million hectares of plantation forestry concessions the day before the country's president was due to sign a decree establishing a two-year moratorium on…

A shorter version of this article appears on Yale e360 as Indonesia’s Corruption Legacy Clouds a Forest Protection Plan. The version that appears below was last revised on October 31,…

As pressures increase on the rich forests of Papua New Guinea, how will biodiversity fare? A new study in mongabay.com's Tropical Conservation Science attempts to answer this question by looking…