SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and…
JAKARTA — Deforestation for oil palm plantations continues unabated at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, likely driven by new processing mills that in turn may ultimately…
JAKARTA — The Norwegian state pension fund has cut ties with U.K. conglomerate Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the group’s gold mining activity in Indonesia could damage the…
JAKARTA — Activists and scientists have condemned a British conglomerate’s decision to resume gold exploration in Indonesia's Batang Toru forest, saying it threatens the world's most endangered great ape, the…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Emergency workers and community firefighters battled isolated fires in Sumatra’s Riau province in late February as the onset of the region’s first dry season of 2024 sparked…
SIDOARJO, Indonesia — On the eve of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, a group of people from across the country gathered at an impromptu art exhibition by the side…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — As the Indonesian government embarks on a massive push to reforest the area around the country’s new capital city in Borneo, it is turning to the…
JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities, academics and companies are working together to build a miniature tropical rainforest they hope will serve as a blueprint for the reforestation program in Indonesia’s new…
BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan — Planners building Indonesia’s new capital city in eastern Borneo say they’re far from their target of reforesting the site that the country’s president has projected will…
JAKARTA — Deforestation by the palm oil industry in Indonesia increased in 2023 for the second year in a row, bucking a decade of gradual decline, according to an analysis…
JAKARTA — The construction of Indonesia’s new capital city on the island of Borneo may destabilize the current stable population of endangered proboscis monkeys, a study has warned. President Joko…
JAKARTA — A conservation task force trying to help an Indonesian mine operator minimize its impact on the Tapanuli orangutan, the world’s most threatened great ape, says it was the…
The liana is an opportunistic plant, a vine that, in the right conditions, can smother a tree as it hitches a ride up to the top of the forest canopy.…
Last week, Indigenous leaders from around the world joined business leaders and politicians for the World Economic Forum's 2024 Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. While much of the discussion on…
JAKARTA — Fires razed nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of lands and forests in Indonesia in 2023, as the country suffered from unusually scorching weather due to El…
JAKARTA — After years of declining deforestation, forest loss caused by Indonesia’s pulp sector is on the rise again, showing a fivefold increase in 2022 compared with 2017 levels, a…
Last week, Mongabay published a recap of the major trends in the world’s tropical rainforests for 2023. Here’s a glimpse into some of the key issues to monitor in 2024.…
The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines. This year, the list is more concise than in the past. Previous year-in-reviews: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |…
A new species of stone oak tree has been described from deep in the forests of northern Sumatra and appears to be an important source of food for the Tapanuli…
Once roaming across Southeast Asia, the Javan rhino today persists on a single peninsula off the western-most coast of Java in Indonesian. There, in Ujung Kulon National Park, around 70…
Ten years ago this month, I stood with the CEO of Asia’s biggest agribusiness, Wilmar International, to announce the company’s new No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy. It banned…
JAKARTA — Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was a rare breed of Indonesian bureaucrat: a visionary policy leader with a love for nature, someone who for decades built bridges between environmentalists and Indigenous…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the…
JAKARTA — Most of the habitat of the Javan hawk-eagle is protected, but threats of forest degradation and isolation loom over the surviving population of Indonesia’s national bird, a new…
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost South Papua province have lambasted a court’s decision to reject their lawsuit that seeks to overturn an environmental permit for a palm oil…
MALINAU, Indonesia — Indonesia’s newly revised energy transition plan includes a more stringent limit on carbon emissions, an increase in the share of renewable energy generation, and a diversified range…
JAKARTA — When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, kicked off the second day of its annual roundtable conference on Nov.…
At almost 1.4 million hectares (3.4 million acres), a little smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut, Kerinci Seblat National Park is the second-largest park in Indonesia, and a jewel…
JAKARTA — Researchers have credited a strong spirit of collaboration for the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and…