JAKARTA — Martamis says he’s worried about how he’ll pay for his daughter’s education once schools reopen. He’s an oil palm farmer from the village of Lubuk Mandarsah in Indonesia’s…
SAHN, Sierra Leone — The day they came, Margaret Fascia was in her forest garden of cocoa trees, pineapple plants, palms, ferns and cassavas. Like most days of the week,…
MBONJO, Cameroon — The first time Emmanuel Elong wrote a letter to Vincent Bolloré was in 2013. “The impact of the group that you are controlling on our lives is…
Between 1885 and 1908, Belgium’s King Leopold II exerted control over a vast area of Africa that would later become the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His rule was characterized…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has sentenced two indigenous farmers to eight and 10 months in prison respectively for stealing oil palm fruit from a plantation company that is…
In September 2019, the noon sky over a part of Jambi province in Indonesian Sumatra turned crimson. Fires had been raging through Indonesia for the past few months, and certain…
JAKARTA — Activists in the Indonesian province of Papua are demanding an investigation into the death of an indigenous man who was reportedly assaulted by a police officer after complaining…
KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…
JAKARTA — Palm oil companies will no longer be required to allocate a fifth of their land for smallholder farmers under a new bill, a move activists and officials call…
In the rural Indonesian village of Hongoi*, indigenous Dayak Modang women like Lina* have had to come up with creative ways to continue their long-held tradition of weaving. Some Dayak…
*This article is a collaboration between Semana Sostenible of Colombia and Mongabay Latam. Sofía and Nicole, two young girls from the Colombian village of Terraplén, sing at the top of…
JAKARTA — Environmental and social activists have welcomed a decision by the Indonesian government to require that smallholder palm oil farmers be certified sustainable. Major plantation companies are already required…
JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists in Indonesia have condemned local authorities over the death in custody of a farmer accused of stealing palm fruit from a plantation company in Borneo.…
Companies, with the support of governments, are using the coronavirus pandemic as a chance to secure less stringent regulations governing their impacts on forests and the environment, according to the…
JAKARTA — Environmental watchdogs say the exit of the world’s largest refiner and trader of palm oil from a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection could hurt efforts…
JAMBI, Indonesia — “If the forest is gone, where else can we live?” Teguh Santika is an indigenous woman from the Batin Sembilan community. Her home is in the Harapan…
In the small community of Boca de Chajul just over the Guatemalan border in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Rafael Lombera recounts how he has seen large expanses of Lacandon…
A major sovereign wealth fund has pulled its entire $12.3-million investment from a Peruvian company that was accused in 2019 of failing to sever ties to a palm oil plantation…
JAKARTA — Police in Indonesia have jailed three indigenous farmers for allegedly stealing oil palm fruit from a plantation company that is itself accused of stealing their land. Police in…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have welcomed food and beverage giant PepsiCo’s move to update its palm oil sustainability policy, following years of pressure over a supply chain tainted by deforestation,…
JAKARTA — Environmental watchdogs have welcomed a zero-deforestation pledge by South Korean trading giant POSCO International with regard to its palm oil operations in Indonesia’s Papua province, following years of…
JAKARTA — A top Indonesian official has declared a halt to new oil palm plantations in the country’s heavily forested Papua region in favor of other, “greener,” crops, apparently contradicting…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has ordered the government to publish detailed maps of oil palm plantations in the country’s easternmost Papua region, an area increasingly targeted by the…
This was meant to be a moment of triumph in the long battle to save the world’s forests. The year when the bold commitment hundreds of companies made to eliminate…
Jaime Luis Arias grew up on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. An isolated coastal pyramid-shaped massif in northern Colombia, the Sierra Nevada is one of…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have called on the Indonesian government to swiftly crack down on plantation companies operating in protected forests, after the country’s highest court ruled such activities illegal.…
JAKARTA — The oil palm processing industry has become the biggest threat to the iconic and endangered proboscis monkeys of Indonesian Borneo, a new study has found. The study, published…
This story is a journalistic collaboration between Revista Vistazo and Mongabay Latam. Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then…
Residents of the community of París de Leán in Honduras say they have been dealing with dirty water for a decade. To demonstrate this, Concepción Aguilera dips a dish into…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — A spate of recent tiger attacks on farmers in Indonesia's South Sumatra province has renewed calls from experts to protect wildlife habitats from development projects that threaten…
