Michelin Group, one of the world's three largest tire companies, has just adopted a zero deforestation policy for its rubber sourcing. The move is significant because rubber is a major…
"Hell for people and paradise for orangutans,” is how Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP), describes intact Indonesian peat swamp forests. With their high daily temperatures…
frica is similar to other developing regions of the world in that agriculture is central to the continent’s economy, composing almost one quarter of its GNP and employing nearly two-thirds…
If demand for palm oil keeps growing the way it has been in Indonesia's eastern Kalimantan region, there might not be enough degraded land available in 2020 to prevent further deforestation…
he countries of Gabon, Liberia, Indonesia and Myanmar may not seem to hold much in common, but each of these countries — two in West Africa and two in East…
he adolescent orangutan was captured in the forests of Sumatra by a soldier at the height of the Aceh province civil war for independence. By February of 2004, this orangutan…
s global markets increasingly clamor for palm oil, used in everything from soap to processed foods, companies are actively scouting out prime places to produce that oil, and governments are…
Indonesian government investigators have uncovered widespread profiteering by state-backed retailers, who are selling millions of dollars worth of subsidized fertilizers meant for small farmers to big plantations. Nearly a third of…
he long-limbed, canopy-swinging, duet-singing gibbons of Southeast Asia are under threat as industrial agriculture eats into their forest habitat. Palm oil plantation expansion is famously bad news for all sorts…
Frustrated by what they say has been seven years of intransigence and injustice, farmers from Cambodia’s ethnic Bunong community are taking their quest for compensation and the return of their…
In what conservationists are hailing as a major breakthrough in efforts to protect Sumatra's fast-dwindling lowland rainforests, the Indonesian government on Wednesday finally approved an ecosystem restoration license for more…
Your car tires may be treading over forests and wildlife in Southeast Asia. As the global demand for tires soars, so does the demand for natural rubber sourced from Hevea…
Lowland Forest profile characteristic of southern Yunnan Province’s threatened rainforests. Image Credit: Hua Zhu, 2008, Tropical Conservation Science. China’s southern Yunnan Province straddles the Myanmar border where the Mekong River…
Officers from Indonesia's Natural Resources Conservation Agency carry a dead tiger in West Sumatra. Two of the critically endangered creatures have turned up dead in the province this year. Photo:…
With more than 3,000 hectares cleared so far and more to come, Greenpeace and other organizations call for detailed land-use strategy in Cameroon In its push to become a middle-income…
Industrial rubber plantation in Colombia. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Surging demand for natural rubber is decimating some of the world's most endangered forests, putting wildlife and critical ecosystem services…
It took five hours by boat from Kepayang in the Indonesian province of South Sumatra to arrive at this remote river community, where most of the residents are illegal loggers.…
This is part of a series of articles on market transformation in the pulp and paper and palm oil sectors in Indonesia. Drainage canal that forms the boundary between the…
As Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom airs on the BBC, the forests documented in the series are increasingly being cut down, according to a new report by U.S. NGO Forest…
Borneo pygmy elephant. Image courtesy of WWF Borneo pygmy elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) are under threat in Indonesia’s new North Kalimantan province, where their habitat is set to be converted…
Activists dress as avatars to protest the destruction of Prey Lang forest. Photo courtesy of Prey Lang: It's Our Forest Too. Four economic land concessions have been cancelled in Cambodia's…
Abandoned by conservationists and the global community, Virachey National Park in Cambodia remains a wildernesses of surprises. An interview with Greg McCann. Haling-Halang and the barrier mountains separating Cambodia and…
Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and…
Cambodian villagers dressed as 'avatars' to protest the destruction of their forest. Photo courtesy of: Prey Lang Network. Two hundred Cambodians rallied in Phnom Penh last week to protest the…
Outline of Yellowstone National Park, the world's first modern protected are, as seen by Google Earth. Yellowstone was opposed by many when it was first created including logging and mining…
The Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has approved a 9,000 hectare (22,200 acre) rubber plantation in Virachey National Park despite its status as a protected area, reports the Phnom Penh…
Cambodian villagers fighting to save their forest from rubber companies have been rebuked by the local government. Two days in a row local authorities prevented some 400 Cambodian villagers from…
