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,…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s highest court has struck down a regulation obliging forestry companies to relinquish and protect carbon-rich concessions to prevent a recurrence of annual fires. The ruling was handed…
When Indonesian President Joko Widodo took office in October 2014, he made it clear that one of his key domestic policies was to develop and upgrade infrastructure across the archipelago.…
JAKARTA — Under pressure from President Joko Widodo’s administration, Indonesia’s second-largest pulp and paper company has agreed in principle to retire plantation land in eastern Sumatra, in line with a…
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…
Indonesia, a top carbon polluter, has a plan to cut its emissions. But unless it takes more drastic measures, it will miss the target it has set for itself, according…
High hopes that the world’s biggest gold mine will finally bring meaningful benefit to the community for which it has for decades been a source of contention have been deflated…
JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government is struggling to collect fines from companies found guilty of damaging the environment, leaving trashed rainforests and peat swamps to stay barren as restoration work…
JAKARTA -- Indonesia, a country known for its annual forest and peat fires, is overhauling its peatland management policies, an effort triggered by the great fires of 2015. 2015 was…
JAKARTA -- Fire season has returned to Indonesia, marking the first real test of President Joko Widodo’s efforts to prevent a repeat of the 2015 haze crisis. Land and forest…
KAPUAS HULU, Indonesia -- Mateus Liung headed to the Tanjung village hall just as dusk started to gather. A walking stick in his right hand supported his now-fragile legs. A…
JAKARTA -- A new palm oil bill is the latest battleground in the fight over how to regulate Indonesia’s plantation sector in the wake of the 2015 fire and haze…
JAKARTA -- Inflated quotas for breeding animals in Indonesia’s commercial conservation facilities appear to be fueling the illegal wildlife trade, according to a new study by TRAFFIC, an NGO. To supply…
The outgoing secretary general of Indonesia’s main indigenous rights organization today declared his intention to run as an independent candidate for governor of North Sumatra, one of the Southeast Asian…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia and JAKARTA -- One of the largest drainage canals ever dug through Indonesia’s peat swamps is being blocked in Kalimantan, the archipelago country’s portion of Borneo island, part…
RUMAH KINANGKUNG — Authorities were explaining the rules governing protected animals to residents of this North Sumatran village when a man appeared, carrying a small, scaly creature by the tail.…
JAKARTA -- Just days after a pair of associations representing the palm oil and timber industries filed a lawsuit against Indonesia’s environment and forestry laws, they withdrew the suit, claiming…
JAYAPURA, Indonesia — When Amos Ondikeleuw became a clan leader, he vowed to never give up his community’s land at the foot of the Cyclops Mountains to the migrants flooding…
The West Kalimantan governor wants to exempt timber firms in the Indonesian province from a national ban on peatland drainage, drawing the ire of green groups who say such a…
ASOLOKOBAL, Indonesia — Laurensius Lani’s footsteps can be heard at dawn alongside the traditional honay thatched-roof houses of the Baliem Valley, here in the archipelago country’s eastermost Papua province. This…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo addressed a contingent of indigenous leaders in Jakarta on Wednesday, reassuring them of his commitment to their civil rights movement in a Muslim-majority archipelago nation of…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Today marks the finale of the fifth congress of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN). In a grand caucus that happens only twice a…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki was the object of a forceful gesture yesterday when a Papuan man approached the stage on which he was sitting…
TANJUNG GUSTA, Indonesia — Abdon Nababan, head of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, was telling reporters today why it had supported Joko Widodo’s bid for the nation’s top job in…
A timber plantation company is illegally clearing one of Indonesia’s last coastal peat swamp forests, a carbon reservoir and biodiversity hotspot home to hundreds of endangered orangutans, say observers who…
This week in Sumatra at a rare congress of the world’s largest indigenous peoples alliance, thousands of tribal representatives from every corner of Indonesia will gather to determine the future…
Indonesia’s highest court on Thursday ordered President Joko Widodo’s administration to hand over detailed maps of land on which oil palm companies have been licensed to operate, adding momentum to…
Greenpeace will appeal a Jakarta court’s ruling against its freedom of information request directed at the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, setting up an encounter between the NGO and…
The morning after a rainy night, mist enshrouds the lush canopy of the forest at Bawan village. This 1,453-hectare hillock packed with high-value timber sits on the edge of the…
JAKARTA — Six weeks after the last of the Bukit Duri evictees moved into their new dwellings here in the Indonesian capital, the atmosphere was friendly but painful. Some tenants…