One day around 2010, Agustinus Tomba and his neighbors heard the sound of heavy machinery in their ancestral forest, in the Indonesian province of Papua. When they went to see…
The article was co-published with The Gecko Project. A decade ago, the Indonesian government began to heavily promote large-scale plantation developments in Papua province, a region of savannahs and rich…
JAKARTA — Activists have called on the Indonesian authorities to probe the finances of the Korindo Group, a privately owned conglomerate, in the wake of an investigation that exposed a $22…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. This post details the analysis we carried out to estimate the revenues generated by the Korindo Group from harvesting timber as it…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) Part 1: ‘Maybe they didn’t expect us to find it’ In April 2019, an Indonesian delegate stepped onto the stage at a conference hosted by Interpol,…
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…
Thousands of workers at the world’s largest copper and gold mine, run by U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan in the Indonesian province of Papua, have been instructed to remain on the company’s…
Local authorities and indigenous communities in Indonesia’s Papua region have imposed a sweeping lockdown to minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus. The region, which comprises the provinces of West…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has convicted a former official and a contractor for their roles in a corruption case centered on a $5.3 million road project in Papua…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world’s largest oil…
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…
JAKARTA — A significant portion of the total population of Indonesia’s Javan deer occurs outside protected areas, highlighting the role of such zones as wildlife refuges, according to new research.…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. When Indonesian government officials received a credible allegation that the permits underpinning a giant oil palm plantation project in Papua province had…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Indonesian government officials have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua province were falsified, leading to the criminal…
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…
JAKARTA — The Forest Stewardship Council, the world’s foremost body certifying the sustainable forestry industry, has delayed the publication of its findings into a palm oil company’s operations in Indonesia,…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. When a string of palm oil companies arrived in the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua…
ARFAK MOUNTAINS, Indonesia — Seblon Mandacan scampers with ease up the slippery footpath through the forest in the Arfak Mountains. I follow slowly. It’s about 4 a.m. and the sky’s…
Korindo, one of the biggest palm oil companies operating in the Indonesian province of Papua, must “secure remedy” for the damage it has done there or else face expulsion from…
JAKARTA — A massive series of seizures of timber from rare tree species has thrown into question the effectiveness of Indonesia’s existing mechanisms to tackle illegal logging. Officials have in…
Just over two years ago, The Gecko Project and Mongabay set out to investigate the hidden story behind twin environmental and social crises unfolding in Indonesia. The country’s rainforests, the…
Sophie Chao is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney, whose work focuses on the impacts of agribusiness on the peoples and environments of the Asia-Pacific and Melanesia…
JAYAPURA/JAKARTA — Rain-triggered flash floods and landslides that struck Indonesia’s easternmost province this past weekend have killed nearly 90 people and driven thousands from their homes. The country’s disaster mitigation…
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…
JAKARTA — When the Indonesian government took a controlling stake in the operator of one of the world’s richest gold mines at the end of 2018, proponents hailed the move…
Violence in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has stalled a massive infrastructure project that researchers have separately warned may threaten the island's ecological health and the livelihood of its residents.…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has published a long-awaited map that, for the first time, unifies all land-use data from a host of disparate sources. The fractured nature of the…