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…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has fined an palm oil company $1.8 million for fires that occurred on its concession in 2015, capping a four-year ordeal by the government to…
JAKARTA — Land and forest fires in Indonesia cost the country $5.2 billion in damage and economic losses this year, equivalent to 0.5% of its economy, according to a new…
JAKARTA — The Malaysian government has decided to allow the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to publish maps of corporate land concessions for Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak, in a bid…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has launched a campaign that government officials say should boost the reputation of the country’s palm oil industry, even as activists and experts warn it could make…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has attempted to downplay the scale of its land and forest fires this year by saying things weren’t as bad as in the Amazon or…
JAKARTA — In Indonesia’s Sumatra, which has lost much of its forests over the decades, a major highway project running the length of the island is poised to speed up…
JAKARTA — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia have charged two government officials for allegedly taking $1.6 million in bribes to grant permits for oil palm plantations spanning just over half the…
“Palm oil is here to stay,” reads the 2018 report “Oil Palm and Biodiversity,” which was produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and represents one of…
JAKARTA — Darwan Ali, an Indonesian politician at the center of a palm oil licensing scandal and charged in a separate corruption case, died on Nov. 18 before he could…
Recent dry-season fires that raged across Indonesia in September and October have taken a toll on forests, even in protected areas. Fires were particularly destructive in southern Sumatra, burning around…
The Mexican state of Campeche sits on the Yucatan Peninsula, a region renowned for its lush jungles and high biodiversity. But the state’s forests are being wiped out by agriculture…
Indonesia and Malaysia have long occupied the spotlight for oil palm plantations and their adverse consequences, including deforestation, habitat loss, climate change, and struggles with indigenous and local people. But…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia have arrested five people over the death of two journalists whose bodies were found at an oil palm plantation, including the alleged owner of…
JAKARTA — The Forest Stewardship Council has released a batch of heavily redacted reports into its probe of violations by a palm oil company operating in Indonesia, after it was…
This article is a collaboration between Rutas del Conflicto and Mongabay Latam. PUERTO GAITÁN, Colombia — When Modesto Paredes bought 25 acres of land 10 years ago in the…
JAKARTA — The makers of Oreo cookies and KitKat chocolate bars are among the companies getting some of their palm oil from producers linked to the fires that have razed…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Two Indonesian journalists who had reported on an illegal oil palm plantation in Sumatra while also allegedly trying to gain control of the crop have been found…
JAKARTA — A year after the Indonesian government imposed a ban on issuing new licenses for oil palm plantations, the leading certification body for sustainable sourcing of the crop has…