JAKARTA — Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, is anticipating a boost in exports of the commodity to China, taking advantage of an opportunity opened up by the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president has made permanent a temporary moratorium on forest-clearing permits for plantations and logging. It’s a policy the government says has proven effective in curtailing deforestation, but…
JAKARTA — A new Indonesian government regulation that restricts the types of carbon-rich peat landscapes that must be protected has raised concerns among environmentalists about a backslide in forest protection…
The sandy path from the village of bamboo houses winds down through the coconut palms, which gives way to mangroves growing along the muddy shoreline. The seven elders inspect their…
Small-scale oil palm projects show that sustainable supply chains, coupled with tough environmental regulation could benefit both farmers and forests.
Commercial agriculture drives some 40 percent of deforestation in the tropics, as suppliers clear forest to plant soy, oil palm, rubber, and cacao or to raise beef cattle. More than…
The consumption of palm oil-based biofuels fell 70 percent in Norway last year, following a government policy change on the purchase of the commodity that is being blamed for rampant…
In 2010, the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), an organization comprised of around 400 of the world’s retail and manufacturing companies, passed a resolution to achieve zero net…
JAKARTA — A provisional moratorium on issuing forest-clearing permits for plantations and logging is expected to be made permanent, Indonesian officials have announced. The moratorium prohibits the conversion of primary…
JAMBI, Indonesia — A biodiverse patch of forest in Sumatra threatened by encroaching oil palm plantations and illegal logging could soon be carved up by a road for coal trucks.…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists in Indonesia have denounced a recent call by the government to keep data about oil palm plantations out of the public’s reach. Citing reasons ranging from…
SINGAPORE — The Malaysian government has called on its neighbors to help defend the palm oil industry against what it deems a discriminative campaign by the European Union to stop…
JAKARTA — A local official in Indonesia has mounted a non-legal challenge against the national government for permitting the development of a corruption-riddled oil palm concession in his district. Amirudin…
TELA, Honduras — On Feb. 6, 1995, an unidentified white pickup truck rolled up to the home of environmental activist Jeanette Kawas. It was a quiet Monday evening in the…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have blasted threats by a senior Indonesian minister that the country will withdraw from the Paris climate accord over a European plan to phase out palm…
JACKSONVILLE, Liberia — When rebels tore through the ancient forests of Sinoe county during the civil wars that ravaged Liberia between 1989 and 2003, villagers often fled to the only road…
JAKARTA — Major corporations that have committed to eradicating tropical deforestation from their operations by 2020 are not going to meet their self-imposed deadline, a report says. The Global Canopy’s…
JAKARTA — The European Commission has officially approved a measure to phase out palm oil-based biofuel by 2030. But while the move has angered major palm oil producers, it hasn’t…
“Maybe what happened to my brother will also happen to me,” says Joseph Paborada, Chair of the indigenous organization Pangalasag. It has been over six years since his brother Gilbert, the…
This week, Norway released the 2018 investment holdings of its massive government pension fund. Notably absent were four plantation companies previously listed in the portfolio: Olam International, Halcyon Agri Corp,…
It was 1997, and while record fires were raging across Indonesia a new socio-economic crisis may have been quietly unfolding among the country’s infants and unborn children, according to a…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency has joined a growing chorus of criticism against a government decision to permit deforestation in a concession at the heart of a bribery scandal. It…
JAKARTA — Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his challenger in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, have both vowed to increase the use of palm oil in biofuels to achieve energy…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and his rival in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, are expected to address the issues of environmental protection and management during the second of…
In the coming weeks and months, a number of Guatemalan palm oil producers are expecting to receive memberships in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a move that…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Police have charged the brother of a top official in Sumatra with clearing a protected forest for a palm oil plantation. Musa Idishah, better known as Dodi…
JAKARTA — It’s responsible for pushing a product found in half of the most common food and consumer items, but the $60 billion palm oil industry has largely evaded the…
JAKARTA — A slowdown in both the expansion of industrial plantations and forest loss across Borneo in 2017 provides strong evidence of a correlation between the two. The findings are…
It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…
On a late night in December, I arrived in the village of Lunjuk on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. A warm breeze welcomed me as I sat down with 30…
