Sumatra News

JAKARTA – For almost a decade, Bambang has labored on an oil palm estate owned by the Salim Group conglomerate in North Sumatra. Every day, he and his wife rise…

The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) of Sumatra is both the world’s newest known great ape species and its most threatened, after being officially categorized this week as “Critically Endangered,” or…

TABA PADANG, Indonesia — Yoyon remembers being elected head of his village back in 2010, here on the southwestern coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, following a spate of…

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…

JAKARTA — Extensive deforestation in Sumatra has corralled the island’s native tigers into fragmented habitats, only two of which contain a sufficiently robust population of the nearly extinct big cat,…

JAKARTA – A subsidiary of Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper firm is seeking to overturn a government decision to nix the company’s plans to operate on peatlands. PT Riau Andalan…

Over 100,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the Indonesian government to do more to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction. “It is imperative [that] the Indonesian government…

The Indonesian government will next year launch a 10-year program to save the critically endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), a bird driven to the verge of extinction because of poaching…

Four sperm whales were reported to have died Tuesday following a mass stranding on a beach on the northwestern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia. A group of 10 sperm whales (Physeter…

Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper firm routed billions of dollars through a network of offshore shell companies, likely to minimize its tax burden in the Southeast Asian country, where it…

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…

A fragile consensus to capture more rhinos has finally been reached, but one major roadblock remains: Indonesian officials.

Time is running out for this Critically Endangered species. So why aren’t we doing more?

Are the park's Sumatran rhinos getting better at hiding from humans, or have they simply disappeared?

Nobody knows exactly how many Sumatran rhinos survive in the wild. But the numbers aren't looking good.

The Indonesian government is rushing to protect the newly described Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), a species already regarded as the most endangered great ape on the planet. The discovery that…

MEDAN, Indonesia — Several NGOs in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province have established a joint team of legal experts to focus on addressing environmental crimes in the region. “This team is…

Susilo sat attached to an oxygen tank instead of tending his vegetables. The 62-year-old farmer, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, had a long history of respiratory trouble,…

Researchers from Indonesia and several other countries today (including authors of this piece) published in the journal Current Biology one of the most exciting new species descriptions in this century…

Two decades after the catastrophic Indonesian wildfires of 1998-9, writer and artist Khairani Barokka revisits her feelings about the disaster in a book-length poem that highlights environmental degradation and indigenous…