JAKARTA — Frans remembers getting up just after sunrise on a September day last year in his village of Panca Mukti, in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi. He’d been…
KENDARI, Indonesia — Like most residents of the tiny island of Bungkutoko in Indonesia’s Southeast Sulawesi province, Mahrudin and Nurhaeti are a fishing family. But their boat has remained beached…
JAKARTA — An effort by the Indonesian government to compile a single map of land-use cover across the vast archipelago is nearing completion seven years after it began, but continues…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s anti-graft agency has vowed to include environmental damages in its calculations of state losses incurred through corruption, in a move that could translate to heavier sentences and…
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia have arrested two Chinese men with the illegal possession of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of valuable turtle shells, believed to have been headed for…
PAKULI INDUK, Indonesia — In a remote village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi lies a small garden of near-mythic repute — a place whose stewards grow not mere plants, but…
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Activists in Indonesia have called for the government to issue a new regulation aimed at better protecting the country’s karsts, the unique rocky landscapes that are home…
LAKE LIMBOTO, Indonesia — Anton Kui has fished here since he was in fifth grade. He remembers he could quickly catch a day’s worth of fish close to his home.…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s picturesque Wakatobi islands are so remote that the electricity only comes on at night. A thousand miles to the west, meanwhile, there’s so much power surging into…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has relinquished control over nine tracts of forest to the indigenous communities that have lived there for generations, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced at a…
Seagrass, the “ugly duckling” of the conservation world, is a vital lifeline for thousands of communities around the globe and an efficient absorber of “blue carbon.” It is also quickly…
A district chief from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi was named a corruption suspect this week over "unlawful" nickel mining licenses he issued to eight companies. Aswad Sulaiman, the former…
LEMBAH PERMAI, Indonesia — Joula Goni stepped out of her house cradling a skull. “A babirusa,” she explained, placing the bleached white cranium on a formica table on the patio.…
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Sand mining in the waters off the southern tip of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island has been put on hold by the provincial government after multiple ferocious rejections from…
The Indonesian island of Sulawesi’s unique fauna has received far more attention than its flora. But the authors of a study describing five new tree species — the first new…
TANGKOKO BATUANGUS NATURE RESERVE, Indonesia — For 55-year-old Nestor Mirontoneng, the years he has spent guiding visitors as they trek this sloping landscape on Sulawesi island have brought him a…
Just in time for Star Wars Day (May the 4th — get it?) comes the announcement of the discovery of two new species of tarsier, the diminutive but surprisingly capable…
In October 2014, when developers entered Seko and Central Seko to begin preliminary work on a 480-megawatt hydroelectric dam, the communities living there say no one asked their permission. The…
NORTH LUWU, Indonesia — Benyamin Langga invited me to walk with him along the rice field embankment, climbing up a hill and then down a steep slope. At 60 years…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Rukka Sombolinggi was selected as secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) on Sunday, becoming the organization’s first female leader since its…
Made by human hands, thousands of floating structures that attract fish speckle Indonesian waters throughout the archipelago. Some drift. Some stand anchored to the ocean bottom. These fish aggregating devices —…
Southeast Sulawesi Province consists mostly of water. Around 75 percent of the province's territory lies offshore, in the Banda Sea and the Gulf of Boni. Its coasts and waters are…
Indonesia's Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti has publicly pledged to intervene in the case of Pulau Bangka, a tiny island off the northeastern tip of Sulawesi where…
In 2013, Indonesia declared the whale shark a protected species, hoping to put a dent in the thriving trade in its body and parts which was pushing the world’s largest fish…
Last year, an extended dry season brought on by El Nino set the stage for one of the worst natural disasters Indonesia has seen, the devastating forest and peatland fires…
These monkeys seem to love "selfies". In 2011, a female black-crested macaque (Macaca nigra) took a series of "selfies" on a camera set up by British photographer David Slater on the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi. These "selfies"…
Earlier this year, in the central highlands of Indonesia’s star-shaped Sulawesi island, thousands of Indonesians toasted a civil rights triumph years in the making. Their victory — the passage of…
Helicopter over a forest supplanted by a mature oil palm plantation and it will look verdant from the sky. The ocean surface over a bombed-out reef still glimmers aquamarine. But…
Clad in wetsuits, four divers finned past a grey slope of rubble. This desolate, submarine pile in the Wakatobi islands in eastern Indonesia is all that remains from years of…
The final story in a three-part series exploring changes in Indonesia's network of marine protected areas through the lens of Wakatobi National Park. Read the first and second articles. his…