This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. This post details the analysis we carried out to estimate the revenues generated by the Korindo Group from harvesting timber as it…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Part 1: ‘Maybe they didn’t expect us to find it’ In April 2019, an Indonesian delegate stepped onto the stage at a…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world’s largest oil…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has ordered the government to publish detailed maps of oil palm plantations in the country’s easternmost Papua region, an area increasingly targeted by the…
The construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon is the narrative engine that drives Sequestrada, the first full-length film by U.S. cinematographer and sociologist Sabrina McCormick.
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. In late 2013, during a hearing convened by the local legislature of Indonesia’s Maluku province, a…
JAKARTA — Experts have warned that a slate of sweeping deregulation planned by the Indonesian government could prove disastrous for the environment and create even more conflicts over land and…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. When the politician in charge of Indonesia’s Aru Islands signed permits for a vast sugar plantation,…
Amazon mega-dam was built with 11,233 MW capacity, but has fallen far short, even as deforestation and drought make the goal more remote. The US$9.5 billion dam may never be profitable.
Land grabbers and agribusiness are the big beneficiaries of new, little publicized policies; Amazon forests, indigenous and traditional peoples are the big losers.
JAKARTA — The Malaysian government has decided to allow the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to publish maps of corporate land concessions for Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak, in a bid…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. When Indonesian government officials received a credible allegation that the permits underpinning a giant oil palm plantation project in Papua province had…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. Indonesian government officials have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua province were falsified, leading to the criminal…
This story was co-published with The Gecko Project. When Rita Widyasari, the former head of Kutai Kartanegara district in Indonesian Borneo, was sentenced to 10 years in prison last year…
JAKARTA — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia have charged two government officials for allegedly taking $1.6 million in bribes to grant permits for oil palm plantations spanning just over half the…
Amazon cattle, soy and timber producers employ “laundering” tricks to hide illegal deforestation. Easy solutions exist, but political will is weak: experts.
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. This month Mongabay and The Gecko Project published “Saving Aru,” an article chronicling how the people of Indonesia’s Aru Islands thwarted a…
The Chávez and Maduro administrations have concealed vast amounts of vital scientific data on climate change, deforestation, pollution, mining, water quality and much more, as far back as 2011.
This story was co-published with The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) I. The movement begins Late one rainy night in August 2013, a…
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. When a string of palm oil companies arrived in the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua…
In 2010, the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), an organization comprised of around 400 of the world’s retail and manufacturing companies, passed a resolution to achieve zero net…
In mid-May Chile finalized an agreement to publicly share proprietary data from its satellite system for monitoring fishing boats, known as a Vessel Monitoring System. The country will share the…
This week, the Indonesian electoral commission confirmed the results of the April 17 election that gave President Joko Widodo a solid victory over his challenger, former army special forces general…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists in Indonesia have denounced a recent call by the government to keep data about oil palm plantations out of the public’s reach. Citing reasons ranging from…
JAKARTA — Many of the fishing vessels operating in Indonesia’s waters at night do so undetected, masking what could be illegal fishing on a massive scale, according to a new…
JAKARTA — In the space of a few days, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has vowed to side with local communities in their disputes over land with large companies — yet…
Just over two years ago, The Gecko Project and Mongabay set out to investigate the hidden story behind twin environmental and social crises unfolding in Indonesia. The country’s rainforests, the…
Sophie Chao is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney, whose work focuses on the impacts of agribusiness on the peoples and environments of the Asia-Pacific and Melanesia…
MAROANGIN, Indonesia — One day in March last year, Rahim was shocked and furious to find an excavator rolling through his rice field, turning the bright green grains into piles…
The Indonesian government must put an immediate halt to land clearing in the Tanah Merah project, a vast stretch of land earmarked to become the world’s biggest oil palm plantation,…
