An investigation by Mongabay has uncovered new evidence suggesting one of the world’s biggest paper producers, Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, took deliberate measures to disguise its ownership of a…
On May 17, 2018, the first eight orange-furred students arrived to begin their studies at a new orangutan forest school in the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Under…
JAKARTA — A program under which pulpwood and logging companies in Indonesia must preserve and restore any peat habitats that fall within their concessions could lead to greater deforestation, NGOs…
When a final agreement to protect the Great Bear Rainforest was announced in February 2016, it was hailed as a major victory for First Nations and environmental activists. More than…
JAKARTA — More than a hundred palm oil and pulp companies in Indonesia have pledged to restore a combined area of peat forest the size of the state of Connecticut,…
Happy new year to all our listeners out there! On our first episode of 2018, we speak with the author of a book about the resilience of indigenous peoples in…
An investigation by The Associated Press has uncovered ownership ties between one of the world’s largest paper producers and more than two dozen tree-plantation companies linked to devastating fires and…
The latest “Forest 500” rankings are out today from the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), and the main takeaway is that the global companies with the most influence over forests still…
JAKARTA — Under pressure from President Joko Widodo’s administration, Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper company has agreed in principle to retire plantation land in eastern Sumatra, in line with a…
The certification organization Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) took a step toward allowing timber companies that have cut down forests since 1994 to apply for the organization’s stamp of approval. Since its…
JAKARTA -- Indonesia, a country known for its annual forest and peat fires, is overhauling its peatland management policies, an effort triggered by the great fires of 2015. 2015 was…
JAKARTA -- Fire season has returned to Indonesia, marking the first real test of President Joko Widodo’s efforts to prevent a repeat of the 2015 haze crisis. Land and forest…
Perhaps no forestry company operating in Indonesia was more controversial from the late 1990s to the early 2010s in environmental circles than Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Throughout that period,…
Six years ago, Boston, Massachusetts-based NGO Ceres started tracking resolutions filed by shareholders asking food and beverage companies to report on how they are managing the risks that come with…
A new campaign by a leading environmental NGO offers a rare glimpse into the frontlines of Indonesia’s “deforestation crisis,” where communities are locked in land disputes with some of the…
JAKARTA -- Palm oil and paper lobby groups have asked Indonesia’s highest court to strike down rules holding plantation firms strictly liable for fires that occur on their land. The…
The West Kalimantan governor wants to exempt timber firms in the Indonesian province from a national ban on peatland drainage, drawing the ire of green groups who say such a…
As the earth gets warmer, nations are putting their hope in tropical rainforests. Located along the equatorial belt of the planet, scientists estimate tropical forests are home to around half…
The number of companies that have pledged to stop selling or using commodities that drive tropical deforestation has proliferated over the past several years. These commitments to clean up commodities…
CORREGO GRANDE, Brazil - The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is the most threatened biome in Brazil and has been subjected to the harsh consequences of human development. But despite having lost…
What’s in a definition? For some, too much. Nearly 200 organizations have signed an open letter to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), calling for the…
U.S.-based clothing conglomerate VF Corporation has adopted its first-ever forestry policy, aimed at eliminating deforestation and human rights abuses from its supply chain. The policy, announced late last month, lays…
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” So said US baseball legend Yogi Berra, on the importance of having a goal in sight and a…
A recent audit of a leading pulp and paper manufacturer in Indonesia has highlighted a significant gap in its sustainability policy, which the company says it is now working to…
It’s estimated that about 10 percent of global emissions comes from deforestation — meaning we could make considerable progress toward halting climate change simply by keeping what remains of the…
International and Indonesian NGOs are calling on the country’s largest paper company to stop using drained peat swamps for industrial agriculture. The practice, which relies on drying out the waterlogged…
Amidst Sumatra’s vast tracts of pulpwood plantations, thin slivers of remaining native forest can serve as corridors for large mammals, researchers say. The new study, published last month in Tropical…
A “fire economy” has emerged in Indonesia in which the blazes tearing through the country’s land and forests, driven largely by the global demand for palm oil, are lining the…
Southeast Asia is a global biodiversity hotspot — but with about four billion people living in the region, the pressures on that biodiversity are severe. Deforestation rates in Southeast Asia…
Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…
