SAROLANGUN, Indonesia — On a night in early July, Solikin was awake chasing elephants past sunrise. The animals had entered the community’s oil palm fields and raised hell, mashing hundreds…
JAKARTA —Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas, which has a long history of deforestation and conflicts with local Indigenous communities, secretly controls Canadian paper and packaging company Paper Excellence, which could soon…
Electric wire fences set up to keep marauding elephants out of farms and villages in Indonesia’s Aceh province worked well — at least at first. When the elephants realized the…
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, repeat guest Leif Cocks joins to discuss recent reporting from Mongabay on the continued destruction of habitat for the critically endangered Sumatran elephant,…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Rahmad Saleh Simbolon, who died of a heart attack on Aug. 9 at age 47, is remembered by both civil society and government officers as a dedicated…
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Nestled between a vast palm oil plantation and the Sumatran rainforest is Alue Buloh, a hamlet in Cot Girek village, North Aceh district. To reach it,…
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Saleh Kadri, a young farmer from Leubok Pusaka village in North Aceh district, was on his way to his plantation when he spotted eight elephants on…
COT GIREK, Indonesia — Junaidi, the leader of an elephant patrol team in this Sumatran village, has a daunting task. The large animals, with their forest habitat destroyed, often enter…
ACEH BESAR, Indonesia — A Sumatran elephant calf has died days after conservation officials in Indonesia amputated half of her trunk due to severe injuries from a suspected snare trap.…
The pungent stench of an elephant carcass filled the acacia plantation. Estimates placed its death at six days before it was found on Nov. 18, 2019. Maggots filled the base…
Jumar is no stranger to the presence of elephants. Having lived and farmed in the village of Pematang Pudu village in Bengkalis district, in Indonesia’s Riau province, for more than…
On Nov. 23, the last Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia died. Named Iman, she’d lived in captivity in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo for just over five…
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.…
Authorities in Indonesia have arrested two of four suspects alleged to have killed a rare Sumatran elephant and hacked off one of its tusks last month. Police in East Aceh…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia have blamed poachers for the death of an elephant found with one of its tusks hacked off, in one of the world’s most…
The backstory behind the world’s smallest elephants has always been something of a mystery. For one thing, scientists aren’t sure exactly when — and how — Bornean pygmy elephants got…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia -- Wildlife activists in Indonesia suspect poachers poisoned an elephant found with its tusks hacked off in a protected forest in southern Sumatra. The body of the male…
Leonardo DiCaprio spent the weekend in Indonesia's embattled Leuser Ecosystem, toward whose conservation his philanthropic foundation pledged $3.2 million in January. Located in northwestern Sumatra, Leuser is one of Southeast…
As part of a campaign to eradicate illegal oil palm in an area of Aceh where elephants travel, a local official felled one of the rogue trees himself on Tuesday…
Warning: Some images below may contain graphic content. At best numbering roughly 2,800 individuals, the Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) is critically endangered. Yet population data has been notoriously difficult…
