Sumatra News

North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA…

JAKARTA — Two major pulp and paper producers associated with widespread deforestation and land conflicts in Indonesia may also have skimped on $168 million in taxes through a web of…

While many look to sustainability certifications as a panacea for the issues surrounding oil palm plantations, a new study cautions that these programs may not be enough to prevent negative…

Along the banks of the Batanghari River on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, thick black coal dust billows from mountainous stockpiles belonging to the coal company PT Tegas Guna Mandari…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s dwindling forests may be cleared for farmland under a government-led program to boost domestic food production, raising fears of a surge in deforestation. The government’s “food estate”…

Sumatra contains some of the largest tracts of intact rainforest left in the world, and is also at the center of a complicated web of deforestation drivers, many of which…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — For the rhinos of Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, snare traps set by poachers are a key factor that threatens to drive them closer to extinction. The Leuser…

The Sumatran rhino, like the land that it inhabits, is unlike anything else in this world: small in stature and docile by nature, the animal sports a coat of black…

Eleven road construction workers were killed on Oct. 21 by a landslide at an illegal coal mining site in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province. The workers were found buried under soil…

JAKARTA — Observers and activists have raised concerns about the leading role the Indonesian government plans to give to the military and to big corporations in a program to establish…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Conservationists are calling for a Sumatran rhino habitat at the northern tip of the Indonesian island to be fully protected from planned road-construction projects. Officials in…

JAKARTA — Activists have slammed one of the world’s biggest pulp and paper companies for clearing peatland in Indonesia despite its zero-deforestation pledge. They say Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings…

"Sumatra is like a fossil relic of rare species...a giant, rhino horn-shaped island blanketed in the richest rainforest you can imagine...there's just nothing like it," biologist Greg McCann says on…

Lured with watermelon, Harapan, a 13-year-old captive Sumatran rhino moseyed into a metal-framed enclosure rigged with 24 cameras. When he stepped in front of the lenses, all of the cameras…

The Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is possibly the world's rarest large mammal, and certainly one of the most endangered. Official figures put the population at around 80 individuals, including eight…

JAKARTA — In 2018, five Indonesian forest rangers had an experience that would make them the envy of conservationists everywhere: they met a newborn Sumatran rhino in the wild. “They…

Update: A new version of the deregulation law containing substantial changes began to circulate on Oct. 12. Mongabay covered it here. A wide-ranging deregulation bill passed in Indonesia this week…

OGAN KOMERING ILIR, Indonesia — Officials in Sumatra plan to build a billion-dollar bridge to the Bangka-Belitung archipelago off the island’s east coast, but conservationists warn it threatens a key…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is doubling down on a plan to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country, in a move that threatens widespread deforestation and the disenfranchisement of…

The socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is heavy and multi-sectoral, marked by an increase in inequality, with the brunt of the pandemic borne mostly by the poorest and most…

JAKARTA — On World Rhino Day, conservationists are calling on the Indonesian government to do “real work” to save the Sumatran rhino, a species described as the most endangered large…

OGAN KOMERING ILIR, Indonesia — Over the past two decades, much of the forests in Ogan Komering Ilir district in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, have been cleared to make way for…

JAKARTA — Newly published research has linked the spread of oil palm and rubber plantations across a watershed area of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island to worsening floods in the region. The…

JAKARTA — Suppliers to Indonesia’s biggest producer of pulpwood for paper cleared an area of carbon-rich peatland 10 times the size of New York City’s Central Park, in possible violation…

The southern pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina) has recently been re-classified as endangered by the IUCN (and even the long-tailed macaque is now considered Vulnerable). This news came as a surprise…

EAST LAMPUNG, Indonesia — It was 42 years ago when Suratno was first asked by a friend, armed with a pack of mongrel dogs and several wooden spears, to go…

JAKARTA — Developers of a hydropower dam that threatens the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan say they will push on despite calls from the IUCN for an…

To some humans, the idea of treating an orangutan as a person is absurd. For Leif Cocks, spending billions of dollars to find life on Mars while living beings are…

BANGKA BELITUNG, Indonesia — Fishers in Sumatra have joined forces in opposition to a government plan to allow coastal mining that they say will destroy their fisheries. The government of…

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the modern-day saber-toothed cats: the Sunda clouded…