Sumatra News

As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.

As Indonesia prepares to launch a new captive-breeding facility for Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in the northern province of Aceh, authorities and conservationists are intensifying efforts to survey and protect…

UPANG CERIA/GELEBAK DALAM, Indonesia — Boat drivers sometimes decide not to work when the smoke is thick on the Musi River out of fear of a dangerous collision. For the…

JAKARTA — Major consumer brands including Nestlé, Kellogg’s and Hershey have been getting some of their palm oil from an illegal plantation inside a protected forest that holds the highest…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

PEKANBARU, Indonesia — September 16 was a happy day for Evan Zendrato and Lasma Yani Zega. The young couple gave birth to a boy weighing 2.8 kilograms (6.1 pounds). They…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Aceh is one of those destinations that glimmer chimerically on the horizon, alluring with its newness, but ever receding, ever retreating in memory with the passage…

JAKARTA — A severely injured and malnourished orangutan has been rescued from a plantation near a Sumatra forest where a hydropower project threatens the only known habitat of this particular…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president has admitted negligence on the part of the government, as top officials engage in a blame game amid the worst spate of forest fires since 2015…

JAMBI, Indonesia — Clouds of haze have blanketed parts of Jambi province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, as slash-and-burn clearing to make way for oil palm plantations rages on.…

Off the coast of Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, the Malacca Strait was once home to dolphins. In their place, there are now barges filled with coal, brought by sea to…

Hotspots signaling fires in Indonesian Borneo and Sumatra have increased nearly sevenfold over a four-day period in September, according to official reports. The national disaster management agency on Sept. 2…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A court in Indonesia has annulled a permit allowing the development of a $3 billion hydropower plant in a forest that’s home to critically endangered tigers,…

The rainforests that once carpeted Indonesia's Sumatra Island are among the world's most biodiverse ecosystems, home to iconic species like the Sumatran tiger, rhino and orangutan. They are also among…

PALEMBANG, Indonesia — The planned construction of a bridge and private port in southern Sumatra threatens to damage one of the last remaining habitats of the island’s critically endangered elephants.…

JAKARTA — The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to carry out in vitro fertilization of Sumatran rhinos, heralding a breakthrough in a decades-long effort to breed the nearly…

In November 2018, a small female Sumatran rhino plunged into a pit trap in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Pahu, as she came to be called,…

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have seized 72 highly prized hornbill casques and arrested a woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle them out of the country. The seizure occurred at…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency has charged a governor from the island of Sumatra with bribery in connection to a land reclamation project, in the latest high-profile case of environmental…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to build a third sanctuary for the captive breeding of Sumatran rhinos, a species on the brink of extinction. The proposed facility will be…