JAKARTA — Central African countries are taking a lesson from the experiences of Indonesia, suffering from one of the world’s highest deforestation rates, as they look to protect their own…
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…
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.…
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…
JAKARTA/PONTIANAK/PEKANBARU — Like their compatriots across Indonesia, a group of residents in the Bornean city of Pontianak celebrated the country’s Independence Day on Aug. 17 with a flag-raising ceremony. But…
JAKARTA — The threat of haze from another season of forest fires on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island hangs over Asia’s biggest sporting event, scheduled to kick off later this month. Authorities…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has released its inaugural report on the state of its forests, highlighting recent successes in conserving an ecological treasure trove that makes up the third-largest span of…
JAKARTA — Oil palm plantations that adhere to the world’s leading certification scheme for the crop show no difference in environmental, social and economic sustainability than non-certified estates, a new…
JAKARTA — Food and beverage giant PepsiCo has launched an investigation into reports of deforestation carried out by one of its suppliers in a key Indonesian habitat that’s home to…
JAKARTA — A landmark Indonesian case that saw an oil palm company fined millions of dollars for burning carbon-rich peatlands has effectively been derailed by a district court on the…
KIRAM, Indonesia — The well-being of tens of thousands of athletes and spectators at Asia’s biggest sporting event later this year will depend on an unusual pair: palm oil and…
KIRAM, Indonesia — It was one of the most spectacular failures of modern agriculture, but two decades after it was abandoned, patches of Indonesia’s Mega Rice Project look to be…
JAKARTA — A program under which pulpwood and logging companies in Indonesia must preserve and restore any peat habitats that fall within their concessions could lead to greater deforestation, NGOs…
JAKARTA — High costs and a lack of funding stand in the way of Indonesia achieving its target for the restoration of degraded peatland across the country, a new study…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has unveiled an ambitious plan to restore a heavily degraded national park that is one of the last remaining habitats on Earth for the critically…
JAKARTA — Local and international watchdogs have criticized Indonesia’s biggest pulp and paper producer for what they deem a failure to live up to its flagship zero-deforestation policy. The joint…
JAKARTA — Two years after he announced a freeze on new oil palm plantation permits, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia finally appears to be on the verge of putting it…
JAKARTA — Forest fires are underway in Indonesia as the rainy season tails off, marking the return of potentially widespread burning that threatens to once again blanket parts of the…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have called for the issue of palm oil to be excluded from discussions taking place this week between the Indonesian government and a European Union trade…
JAKARTA — A team of scientists from Indonesia, Germany and the Netherlands has won a competition two years in the making to come up with a fast, accurate and cost-effective…
JAKARTA — Environmental issues in Indonesia will once again be both bargaining chip and valuable stake this year as the country prepares to hold sweeping elections, according to an environmental…
ACEH, Indonesia — Deforestation slowed last year in the Indonesian province of Aceh, home to the Leuser Ecosystem biodiversity hotspot, according to a local forest watchdog. The province, which spans…
JAKARTA — More than a hundred palm oil and pulp companies in Indonesia have pledged to restore a combined area of peat forest the size of the state of Connecticut,…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has reported a second straight annual decline in the country’s deforestation rate, but continues to confound with its definition of what constitutes a forest. The…
JAKARTA — The daunting task of mapping Indonesia’s vast peatlands in painstaking detail has entered the home stretch, as competing proposals vie for selection as the standard to be adopted…
JAKARTA — Of the nearly 3,000 villages located within peatlands throughout Indonesia, only one is permitted to manage the forest — a glaring omission that the government has been slow…
JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia are adamant about passing new legislation on the palm oil industry this year, amid concerns from activists and even the executive branch of government. Environmental…
JAKARTA — Experts and officials have taken issue with a new study that warns of hefty economic losses as a result of the Indonesian government’s policies to protect peatlands from…
JAKARTA — 2017 saw Indonesia once again fulfilling its economic development potential. The Southeast Asian nation started out the year with mixed superlatives: home to the third-largest stretch of tropical…
JAKARTA – The Indonesian government has unveiled an ambitious plan to nearly halve the number of fire hotspots in the country by 2019, in part through the restoration of degraded…