Mongabay series: Southeast Asian infrastructure

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…

ULU MUDA, Malaysia — On a dusty roadside in northwestern Malaysia, the drivers of three trucks laden with logs are lounging beneath an open-sided hut while they wait for officials…

CENTRAL KALIMANTAN, Indonesian Borneo — Dense vegetation presses up to the banks of the Lamandau River, with tree branches dropping low overhead to form a natural tunnel. Occasionally, the calls…

A damning review of plans for the controversial Pak Beng hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Laos was released this week by US-based advocacy group International Rivers, adding weight…

After coming under public scrutiny, Central Kalimantan Governor Sugianto Sabran halted the construction of a railroad being built to transport coal through forested areas of the province. The governor's decision…

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia – On a soft couch in the chilled lobby of a luxury hotel, Mason Campbell shifts somewhat uncomfortably in his dark suit. He’s waiting to head to a…

HANOI, Vietnam – Nearly 200 experts, academics and officials from around the world gathered last week in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi for an international forum on sustainable infrastructure. The…

The Papua New Guinea (PNG) government is actively pursuing the potential of developing a coal mining industry for the first time in the country’s history. Two years ago, it channeled…

The Indonesian government appears to be backtracking on its aggressive 35,000-megawatt, coal-centric energy development plan. The ambitious 35,000 megawatts of new electricity generation projects were to be completed by 2019,…

SUKAU, Malaysia – At first blush, the muddy waters of the Kinabatangan River in northern Borneo seem to laze through a hodge-podge of sleepy fishing and farming villages. The river…

In October 2014, when developers entered Seko and Central Seko to begin preliminary work on a 480-megawatt hydroelectric dam, the communities living there say no one asked their permission. The…

Controversial plans to build a bridge over the Kinabatangan River in Malaysian Borneo's Sabah state have been canceled, announced Sabah Forest Department Chief Conservator Sam Mannan. The announcement was made…

PENANG, Malaysia — Fisherman Liew Hock Choon, 50, cut the outboard engine and explained that we have arrived at the position of one of his fish traps. “No GPS,” he…

British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto was for 45 years the majority-owner of the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville, an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea (PNG). But now it has…

NORTH LUWU, Indonesia — Benyamin Langga invited me to walk with him along the rice field embankment, climbing up a hill and then down a steep slope. At 60 years…

KRATIE PROVINCE, Cambodia — “If the dam is built, it will be like before, in the time of the Khmer Rouge when we all had to move,” said Plau Saret,…

The Indonesian archipelago is home to a myriad of plants and animals, including Sumatran tigers, birds of paradise, orangutans and leatherback turtles. It is also home to extensive mineral resources…

Indonesian New Guinea holds some of the largest remnants of old-growth tropical forest on the planet. Yet the region faces increasing pressure to share its riches with the rest of…

During 74 days in late 2009, a leak in the Montara offshore drilling platform gushed tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea, a body of water…