Mongabay series: Leuser Ecosystem

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A mother Sumatran tiger and her two cubs were found dead this week in a snare trap in Indonesia’s westernmost Aceh province. Local people in Buboh,…

JAKARTA — A major palm oil company supplying to global brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo continues to source the raw commodity from plantations responsible for deforesting prime orangutan habitat in…

Rudi Putra is well-known in Indonesia’s conservation world. Born in 1977 in Aceh Tamiang district, in Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, Rudi has been working on preserving…

JAKARTA — An upgrade to a road that cuts through one of Southeast Asia’s last great swaths of intact rainforest is driving deeper encroachment by humans into blocks of forest…

TENGGULUN, Indonesia — Around 20 Acehnese men sit cross-legged while smoking clove cigarettes on the terrace of a simple wooden building in this village on the island of Sumatra. The…

JAKARTA — An artist working with environmental activists has carved out a distress call from a stand of thousands of oil palm trees in a former plantation on the edge…

A mining project in Indonesia's Leuser Ecosytem that has for years pitted environmental activists and local residents against mineral mining company PT Wanyang Mining Gayoindo (PT WMG) appears to have…

Oil palm plantation companies are still eating away at the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Indonesia’s last best rainforests, despite a provincial ban on forest clearance to make way for the…

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…

KABANJAHE, Indonesia — Zulbaidah used to take her family’s pet orangutan on road trips. He’d ride in the back with the kids. “He was like my own son,” the 55-year-old…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — The governor-elect of Aceh province said he would revoke a proposal to drill for geothermal energy and build a power plant in the heart of Sumatra’s…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia --- The son of a local parliament chief has been named a suspect over illegal land clearing in the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve, a heavily protected area…

Five years ago, there were likely very few people outside of Indonesia who'd ever heard of a place called the Leuser ecosystem. Today, this enormous and besieged tropical rainforest on…

In a blow to rainforest conservation on Indonesia’s main western island of Sumatra, a court today dismissed a class-action lawsuit aiming to force the Aceh provincial government to mention the…

KEUDE TRUMON, Indonesia — On Oct. 29, villagers here came upon an excavator tearing a gash through the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve. The biodiversity hotspot is one of the archipelago…

BUKIT LAWANG, Indonesia — About a dozen foreign tourists clamored around an orangutan and her young child. “Can I take a photo with her?” a tanktop-clad backpacker asked. “Of course,”…

No roads shall pass through Mount Leuser National Park. So said the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry in response to just such a proposal from the governor of North Sumatra…

Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem lost 4,097 hectares of forest cover in the first six months of 2016, according to Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh (HAkA), an NGO. At the same…

The Indonesian environment ministry has denied the Aceh provincial government’s proposal to rezone part of Mount Leuser National Park for geothermal development, reacting to opposition from conservationists who argued the…

The governor of Indonesia’s Aceh province is moving forward with a plan to rezone part of Mount Leuser National Park for geothermal development, despite opposition from conservationists who say the…

An NGO is suing an Indonesian district head for permitting a cement factory to operate in the nationally protected Leuser Ecosystem, one of Southeast Asia’s last great swaths of intact…

Top officials in Indonesia have reportedly declared a moratorium on new oil palm and mining concessions in the Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth where elephants, rhinos, orangutans, and…

Almost half of the forests in Indonesia’s Sumatra are within reach of the average bird trapper, finds a new study published in Conservation Biology. Based on interviews with 49 trappers…

"Hell for people and paradise for orangutans,” is how Ian Singleton, director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP), describes intact Indonesian peat swamp forests. With their high daily temperatures…

Leonardo DiCaprio has endorsed a Change.org petition asking Indonesia's top leadership to protect the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Southeast Asia's last great swaths of rainforest. Several times in recent days, the Oscar winner and…

ast week, Leonardo Dicaprio was threatened with deportation from Indonesia after he visited a Sumatran jungle and then posted critically to Instagram about the palm oil industry. Some bureaucrats and politicians accused…

Leonardo DiCaprio was threatened with deportation from Indonesia on Thursday following the Hollywood actor's visit to the embattled Leuser Ecosystem, one of Southeast Asia's last great swaths of intact rainforest. Indonesian officials accused…

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…

Three wildlife traffickers who were caught in November with as many baby Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) were sentenced to between two and two-and-a-half years behind bars this week by a court in…

Authorities in Aceh arrested two more tiger poachers last week, with investigators posing as buyers to catch the men in the act of making the illegal sale. Police recovered two skins…