Mongabay series: Indonesian Fisheries

JAKARTA — An oil spill in Borneo that began over the past weekend has now spread across an area greater than the city of Paris and is heading out to…

UPDATE (Apr. 4, 2018): Pertamina admitted responsibility for the oil spill because its pipes broke and leaked.  JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has launched an investigation into a major oil…

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Tilapia is a mainstay of Balinese cuisine, but hundreds of thousands of the freshwater fish choke to death regularly in the resort island’s largest lake, for reasons…

JAKARTA — Two videos of manta rays and other fish swimming through swaths of garbage off the resort island of Bali earlier this year have highlighted once again the plastic…

AUKI, Indonesia — “We ladies have eyes on our feet,” Susanti Maryen says after a morning spent collecting saltwater clams and snails at a beach in Auki, an islet off…

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has called on the navy to shoot at foreign ships suspected of extracting natural resources from his country’s exclusive maritime territory. Duterte made the…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Police in Indonesia have arrested two Chinese men with the illegal possession of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of valuable turtle shells, believed to have been headed for…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has eased off from the full enforcement of a ban on fishing using a controversial type of dragnet known as a seine, following protests by fishermen. Under…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is lobbying the United Nations to allow governments worldwide to pursue money-laundering charges against illegal fishing operators, in a bid to crack down on the practice more…

LAKE LIMBOTO, Indonesia — Anton Kui has fished here since he was in fifth grade. He remembers he could quickly catch a day’s worth of fish close to his home.…

Seagrass, the “ugly duckling” of the conservation world, is a vital lifeline for thousands of communities around the globe and an efficient absorber of “blue carbon.” It is also quickly…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has allowed work to resume on a $40 billion project to build 17 artificial islands off the northern coast of the capital Jakarta, overturning a…

SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Activists in eastern Borneo suspect that an Irrawaddy dolphin found dead on a local beach last month had probably been snagged in a fishing net. This is…

JAKARTA — Not everyone supports the Indonesian government’s decision to publish information on the location of fishing boats in its waters, via data mapping platform Global Fishing Watch, accessible to…

Indonesian authorities have indicted five local shipping companies on charges of gross negligence after their coal barges damaged coral reefs in a Javan marine park, a local official told Mongabay.…

JAKARTA -- Indonesia is suing an arm of Thailand’s biggest energy group, PTT, for the equivalent of more than $2 billion over a 2009 oil spill the archipelago country says…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Sand mining in the waters off the southern tip of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island has been put on hold by the provincial government after multiple ferocious rejections from…

Text by Jacopo Pasotti, photos by Elisabetta Zavoli MANGUNHARJO, Indonesia – A mangrove forest once surrounded this village on Java’s northern coast. That was before the woods were clear-cut to…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government can’t restore one of the country’s best coral reefs until it strikes a compensation deal with the insurer of the cruise line that wrecked it,…

DENPASAR, Indonesia — A recent spate of busts has placed Bali in the spotlight once again as a key domestic market for endangered sea turtles. In February, Bali marine police…