JAKARTA — Two people have died in a series of land disputes between major companies and rural communities in Indonesia. Activists have denounced the escalation in the conflicts, saying businesses…
U.S. President Donald Trump’s most senior intelligence official, Richard Grenell, came under scrutiny last month after it emerged he had carried out work for sanctioned Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc. Mongabay…
JAKARTA — Environmental watchdogs say the exit of the world’s largest refiner and trader of palm oil from a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection could hurt efforts…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Images by Nanang Sujana. When the people of Aru discovered that most of the land in their islands was to be converted…
MANILA — Facing armed conflict in their hometowns in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, dozens of indigenous students moved to Manila to continue their education. But with the new…
In the small community of Boca de Chajul just over the Guatemalan border in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Rafael Lombera recounts how he has seen large expanses of Lacandon…
AMBON, Indonesia — Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry has charged a director of a plantation firm on the eastern Indonesian island of Seram with illegal logging in a dispute…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. KOKOE, Indonesia — For years, this eastern Indonesian village of fishermen and seaweed farmers simmered with anger over the pollution of its…
GENERAL NAKAR, Philippines — Lucio Tena, 64, has been growing coconuts on his 20-hectare (49-acre) farm in General Nakar, on the east coast of the Philippine island of Luzon, for…
JAKARTA — Environmental experts have warned of a resurgence in illegal logging in Indonesia after the government declared that wood exports would no longer have to comply with a stringent…
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…
It’s such a simple idea: plant a tree, let it grow, and each year it will capture more and more carbon from the atmosphere. This is the logic behind a…
AMBON, Indonesia — Activists in Indonesia have called on police to drop criminal charges against two indigenous men who took part in a confrontation against a company accused of illegally…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Activists have deplored the recent jailing of two indigenous community members in Sumatra in a land conflict involving an affiliate of pulp and paper giant Royal Golden…
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…
(Illustrations by Yana Adamovic.) CHISINAU, Moldova — Many men have regretted their friendship with Yuri Drukker. Born to Jewish parents in what is now Ukraine at the close of the…
Logging for timber by definition reduces tree cover. But what happens when logging stops? A new study has found that in concessions where timber firms have stopped operating, deforestation actually…
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 sweeping package of deregulation aimed at boosting Indonesia’s economy will be far more harmful than initially feared as it threatens to revive the centralized power structure of…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. In late 2013, during a hearing convened by the local legislature of Indonesia’s Maluku province, a…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is planning to sue five companies, and possibly up to 16, over the fires that burned on their concessions last year. But recent cases indicate…
JAKARTA — Experts have warned that a slate of sweeping deregulation planned by the Indonesian government could prove disastrous for the environment and create even more conflicts over land and…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. When the politician in charge of Indonesia’s Aru Islands signed permits for a vast sugar plantation,…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s environment ministry says it’s willing to revive a partnership with WWF after abruptly terminating its long-running cooperation with the conservation NGO over a perceived social media slight.…
The effects of commercial logging, mining and farming can ripple beyond the boundaries of the operations, leading to the substantial loss and degradation of nearby forest for subsistence agriculture, a…
Howler monkeys change their calls when they’re close to deforested areas, a new study has found. A team of researchers, led by anthropologist Laura Bolt of the University of Waterloo…
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…
JAKARTA — Activists say they’ve identified the business tycoons who control land in the area slated for Indonesia’s new capital and who could potentially benefit from the $33.5 billion mega…
