Plantations News

Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth's land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction by 2030, according to a…

JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has rejected a bid by two palm oil companies to have their permits restored after they were scrapped by local authorities for a litany…

In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the…

BALI, Indonesia — Palm oil industry watchdogs are warning of a possible surge in deforestation across Indonesia, after the government ended a three-year freeze on issuing permits for new plantations.…

Widespread lockdowns and working from home to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have led to booming demand for home furnishings. As furniture manufacturers scramble to keep up with the rush on…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s…

SORONG, Indonesia — An Indigenous clan in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has had its rights to its ancestral lands and forests recognized by the local government, a key step…

A project originally aimed to fuel agribusiness in one of the most heavily deforested parts of the Brazilian Amazon is now being touted by the government as a “green” and…

When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…

PEKANBARU, Riau — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland have arrested a local official for allegedly taking bribes from a palm oil company in exchange for extending its business…

WildEast hopes to rewild large, interconnected tracts in East Anglia and also introduce regenerative farming practices on farmland still in use, but some local farmers complain the project lacks consultation.

In 2012, researchers in Sri Lanka tracked the movements of a dozen “problem elephants” that had been translocated into protected areas due to conflict with humans. Their findings were worrying:…

JAKARTA — Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, owes a substantial slice of that output to criminal deforestation, according to a new report showing that a fifth of…

SINGAPORE — On a vast plateau atop Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan, China, nearly a mile above sea level, grows a forest of ancient tea trees. During summer, silvery cobwebs line…

JAKARTA — Indonesian officials have backtracked on the country’s pledge at the COP26 climate summit to end deforestation by 2030, calling it unfair and inappropriate to demand that it stop…

A court in Peru has formally dismissed a defamation case filed by an agribusiness company against Mongabay Latam journalist Yvette Sierra Praeli. On Monday, the Fourth Criminal Chamber of Lima…

JAKARTA — A new web monitoring platform aims to achieve full traceability in palm oil supply chains and help companies to meet their zero-deforestation commitments — a goal that continues…

SORONG, West Papua — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s West Papua province are fighting for the rights to their ancestral forests, now that the local government has rescinded licenses for oil…

JAKARTA — Conservation groups are calling on the Asian Development Bank to tighten its scrutiny of a road project it plans to fund in Indonesian Borneo that may pose risks…

Before the clearing and excavators and bulldozers, before plans to build a gold mine and oil palm plantations, the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves in Johor, Malaysia, were wildlife-rich jungles…

Protected forests, such as those in national parks, are unlikely to be cut down when surrounded by intact forests. Conversely, when a protected forest’s neighboring lands are degraded, it’s likely…

The Kinabatangan River rises in the beating heart of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, where ancient primary forest cloaks the slopes of steep-sided mountains. As it meanders east toward the Sulu Sea,…

JAKARTA — Activists are warning of “severe environmental and social risks” from plans by two of the world’s largest paper companies to significantly expand their operations in Indonesia. Both Asia…

A palm oil executive was secretly filmed describing the payment of bribes to public officials in exchange for logging permits and access to land in Papua New Guinea, in a…

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In July, conservationists in Cambodia sounded the alarm over a regulation that saw eight protected areas in Koh Kong province collectively lose territory twice the size…

SORONG, West Papua — With its lush rainforests and long stretches of beaches, Waimon, a coastal village in Indonesia’s West Papua province, seems like an idyllic place. But some residents…

Biologists often refer to the Wallacea region of Indonesia as a “living laboratory” for the study of evolution. Spanning 1,680 of Indonesia’s central islands, including the Malukus, Nusa Tenggara and…

Workers at Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, had up to 30% of their wages deducted to pay for the use of portable harvesting machines that pull coffee tree branches to take the beans.

From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-colored shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation.…

JAKARTA — Consumer goods behemoths such as Unilever, PepsiCo and Nestlé that buy palm oil from Indonesia may be exposed to the environmental and social fallout from a seemingly unrelated…