JAKARTA — Presidential candidates in Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest span of tropical rainforest, will have to address the issues of environmental protection and management in upcoming debates, according…
“When oil palm was given out by the district head I didn’t accept it. I am still angry at the oil palm companies,” says Monica Mensea. At 83, Mensea is…
More than 90 institutional investors managing more than $6.7 trillion in assets have called on the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to strengthen its standards, including by banning deforestation. The…
Ecuador’s oil palm industry has taken what many see as another step forward by committing to a jurisdictional RSPO system as a way to transform the entire sector by making it…
WIMBI, Ecuador — When Yessenia Padilla heard that her community crops were being destroyed, she and about 70 of her neighbors rushed out to intervene. They grabbed large boards, rocks,…
Bigal River Biological Reserve was created in 2008 in the foothill forests of northeastern Ecuador, on the Amazonian side of the Andean slopes. The private protected area is located in…
Papua New Guinea’s timber industry is plagued by illegality, including lax enforcement of forestry laws, the misuse of logging licenses and the sidelining of local communities, according to a new…
LA CONCORDIA, Ecuador — Jorge Jurado has been farming oil palm on Ecuador’s coast for almost 20 years, and has seen the industry go through many changes. But over the…
One afternoon in 2017, an indigenous Dayak man named Kardie tracked us down to a hotel in Kuala Kurun, a one-horse town in the interior of Indonesian Borneo. He had…
JAKARTA — For the past four years, the indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya has battled for state recognition of its right to ancestral forests in a remote pocket…
Scientists seeking the tools necessary to tackle climate change need to better understand both the current interplay between carbon and tropical forests and how those forests will respond as temperatures…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has released its inaugural report on the state of its forests, highlighting recent successes in conserving an ecological treasure trove that makes up the third-largest span of…
Last month, food giant Nestlé was suspended from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, the world’s largest association for ethical production of the commodity. It didn’t last long. This week,…
An Indonesian-owned plantation company operating in Liberia has come under renewed scrutiny for allegedly clearing hundreds of hectares of protected forestland, including chimpanzee habitat, wetlands and river buffer zones. Between…
KUCHING, Malaysia — For generations, the people of Papua New Guinea’s northeasternmostprovince, New Ireland, have depended on the region’s rich marine resources for their livelihoods. Like the rest of the…
Food and drinks giant Nestlé was suspended from the world’s largest association for ethical palm oil production late last month and can no longer use the group’s stamp of approval…
JAKARTA — Oil palm plantations that adhere to the world’s leading certification scheme for the crop show no difference in environmental, social and economic sustainability than non-certified estates, a new…
Major agribusiness firms are using opaque corporate structures to gain access to palm oil sourced from plantations operating in violation of their sustainability commitments, according to an investigation into the…
New research comparing the carbon costs of oil palm plantations with those of rubber production finds that while oil palm cultivation is the more efficient process in terms of land…
Over the past decade, Norway has spent $3 billion to support efforts to keep forests standing in all of the world’s major rainforest countries, helping to elevate forest protection as…
