JAKARTA — Activists have welcomed the Indonesian government’s announcement to carry out a nationwide audit of all palm oil companies operating here, in response to a shortage of cooking oil…
Tropical deforestation is a cost our planet pays every day for the food we eat. The palm oil in our ice cream, the steak on our tables, and the soy…
JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia’s Papua province have recommended the revocation of licenses for 35 out of the 54 oil palm concessions operating there. The move follows an evaluation of…
JAKARTA — For decades, oil palm farmers in Indonesia have drained — and destroyed — tropical peatlands on the basis that the crop doesn’t grow well in the boggy soil.…
Industrial logging, rubber, oil palm, then coal. The snowballing effects of these extractive industries have divided local communities and destroyed livelihoods in parts of Indonesian Borneo, a new study finds.…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Reportedly home to 3% of the planet's mammal species and one of the highest levels of lowland plant diversity known to science, Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park…
JAKARTA — Fires in areas of carbon-intense peatland forest on the island of Sumatra appear to have been set in and around oil palm plantation concessions and could signal the…
Cannabis, marijuana, pot, bud, grass or herb — no matter its nickname, this go-to drug has long been associated with the essence of “green” and connected to eco-friendly movements. Yet,…
Last week, Mongabay, BBC News and The Gecko Project released a joint investigation into a scheme that was intended to help lift millions of Indonesians out of poverty and cut…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has dismissed lawsuits filed by two palm oil companies against a district head who revoked their permits over various violations. The May 23 rulings…
Antibody tests conducted on domestic cats and wild cats in Malaysian Borneo indicate that oil palm plantations may act as transmission sites for viruses, according to a new study. The…
MUARA JAMBI, Indonesia — In a wood-plank house on the banks of the Batang Hari River, a dukun, or traditional healer, named Siti Hawa, 62, handles a grass-like plant topped…
When the Indigenous villagers of Tebing Tinggi agreed to give control of their ancestral land to a palm oil company in 1995, it promised to transform their fortunes. The Suku…
The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
Training cattle ranchers in Brazil to recover degraded pastures could curb carbon dioxide emissions, scale down deforestation for agriculture in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and increase their income, according…
Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning biomass, such as wood pellets, to make energy, with potentially adverse impacts on the global climate, deforestation and biodiversity.
Malaysia is the second-largest palm oil producer in the world, behind only Indonesia. In 2020 alone, Malaysia was responsible for more than a quarter of global palm oil production. But…
JAKARTA — The office of the Indonesian ombudsman says it has found indications of maladministration in the government’s decision to revoke hundreds of logging, plantation and mining permits across the…
JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia are pressing the government to uncover the true scale of illegal oil palm plantations in the country, following the revelation that the state missed out…
JAKARTA — Tropical forest loss remained consistently high in 2021 with no sign of slowing down, despite commitments by companies and governments to curb deforestation, according to new data from…
The Mediterranean is a cradle — of civilization, of agriculture, of history. But the region, stretching across southern and southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, is also a…
JAKARTA — Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of crude palm oil, has ordered a ban on the export of the commodity starting April 28 to address an ongoing shortage of…
In 1993, the democratically elected president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye was assassinated in a coup. At the time, the country’s democratic institutions were still only three months old. The incident…
JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged a top trade ministry official and three palm oil executives in connection with a scarcity of cooking oil that has driven up protest and…
Activists and an opposition lawmaker in the Malaysian state of Pahang have demanded government accountability after reports that just 5% of forest reserves cleared to make way for plantations have…
VICHADA, Colombia — Nearly 13 years have passed since the Guahibo Indigenous community El Trompillo was allegedly forcibly relocated from their territory. Members report persistent hunger and overcrowding in makeshift…
For the past decade, an association of small farmers has been growing vegetables amid a strip of filao trees that grow on the sand dunes along the coastline in the…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) The Sundaland bioregion spans Borneo, Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and a myriad of smaller surrounding islands. Sundaland hosts one of the largest tracts of primary…
On Sunday mornings, my mother would grate coconut meat. She would squeeze the milk from the grated shreds, then cook the coconut milk in a saucepan over a medium heat.…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Upon his inauguration as governor of Riau in early 2019, Syamsuar promised to “protect the dignity of Indonesia” by ensuring that the vast Sumatran province, home to…
