Mongabay series: Indonesian Palm Oil

On a late night in December, I arrived in the village of Lunjuk on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. A warm breeze welcomed me as I sat down with 30…

A Christmas advertisement deemed too political to air in the U.K. but that has been viewed more than 70 million times online has rekindled the debate about how to save…

Dutch banks ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank are failing to inform their customers that investment funds they offer include shares in palm oil companies damaging the environment in Indonesia, according…

The world’s biggest palm oil trader has updated its sustainability policy, as its self-imposed deadline to stop buying palm oil linked to a variety of environmental and social ills draws…

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,…

Last week, The Gecko Project, Mongabay, Tempo and Malaysiakini published an investigation into the story behind the Tanah Merah project, a giant oil palm plantation under development in Papua, Indonesia.…

Prologue: Johor Baru, 2012 In December 2012, at a press conference on the sidelines of an Islamic business forum in Malaysia, a man named Chairul Anhar made a bold claim.…

A palm oil supplier to PepsiCo, Mars, Hershey and Johnson & Johnson has resumed clearing intact forest in West Papua, Indonesia, despite pressure by other major companies, many of which…

JAKARTA — A new report has linked Mondelēz International, the food giant behind such iconic snacks as Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers, to large-scale deforestation in Indonesia. The investigation by…

JAKARTA — Its name in Indonesian means “hope,” but there seems to be little of that remaining for the Harapan rainforest, a tropical woodland oasis in an ever-expanding desert of…

On Sept. 19, Indonesian President Joko Widodo slapped a three-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for oil palm plantations. The moratorium was introduced to “improve governance of sustainable…

JAKARTA — Three executives from one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil firms were arrested over the weekend by the nation’s anti-graft agency after an employee was caught bribing politicians to…

Indonesia’s graft-ridden palm oil sector is in need of an “overhaul,” according to the nation’s anti-corruption agency. The agency, known as the KPK, is helping guide a sweeping review of…

JAKARTA — The developers of a new interactive map hope to shine a light on deforestation in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, where industrial-scale agriculture threatens one of the world’s…

JAKARTA — A prominent environmental expert in Indonesia faces a lawsuit by a palm oil company after testifying against its practices, in the second case of its kind this year.…

Large landscapes of intact tropical forests will figure prominently in global strategies to avert catastrophic climate change and conserve biodiversity. In this context, the extensive forests of Papua and West…

JAKARTA — Pledges by major brands to stop buying palm oil from companies known to destroy rainforests have failed to stop the clearance of a total area of forest the…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has signed a moratorium on new licenses for oil palm plantations. The presidential instruction, signed on Sept. 19, will remain in place for no more than…

Although expansion of oil palm plantations appears to be inevitable, regulators have options when deciding what land may be converted into the world's most widely planted vegetable oil crop. A…

Knowing where deforestation is happening is critical for efforts aimed at stopping or slowing it. Major breakthroughs toward this goal have been made over the previous few years, with NGOs…