indonesia

JAKARTA — Cartel practices have been blamed for a scarcity of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil — but government policies seen as coddling the industry…

JAKARTA — Indonesia looks set to continue its heavy reliance on coal in its energy mix under a legislative sleight of hand: it will define fuels derived from coal as…

JAKARTA — An area of natural forest a tenth the size of Seoul has been cleared by a subsidiary of South Korean paper giant Moorim in Indonesia’s Papua region, a…

JAKARTA — Deforestation associated with palm oil in the region covering Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea has declined for the second straight year, a new analysis shows, dropping to…

JAKARTA — A palm oil company responsible for clear-cutting forests in an Indonesian ecosystem that’s the only place on Earth where tigers, orangutans and rhinos roam appears to be doing…

JAKARTA — An eight-year effort by Indonesia to protect its remaining forests contributed just 4% of its emissions reduction target, yet still yielded carbon savings worth far more than it…

JAKARTA — The establishment of large-scale agriculture under the Indonesian government’s “food estate” program is harming local farmers in Sumatra, a study has found. The program was announced in 2020 by President…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it will finalize this month the revocation of hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines that it announced at the start of the…

JAKARTA — Pulpwood and palm oil companies were among the biggest contributors to the loss of a Manhattan-size area of forest in Indonesia’s Papua region in 2021, a new report…

JAKARTA — A plan to clear forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua for food crops will release as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as Australia emits in an…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has opened itself up to litigation by unilaterally revoking hundreds of permits for logging concessions, plantations and mines, according to environmental law experts. The revocations…

JAKARTA — Local opposition to a mine on Indonesia’s Java Island, and the heavy-handed police crackdown on protesters, has turned the national spotlight on a spate of development projects touted…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it has no plans to reclassify oil palms as a forest crop rather than an agricultural one, following a controversial proposal made by the…

JAKARTA — In the nearly two years since Indonesian lawmakers passed a controversial mining law, the legislation has increasingly been used by police to arrest villagers and local activists opposed…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has recorded mixed progress in its dual programs of restoring tropical peatlands and mangroves, acknowledging that achieving the latter goal will be far more challenging than for…

JAKARTA — A sting by anti-corruption officers in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province has uncovered evidence that a powerful local official allegedly used slave labor on his oil palm plantation. Agents…

JAKARTA — Deforestation for new oil palm plantations in Indonesia has decreased over the past decade, strengthening the case that palm oil doesn’t have to be associated with the destruction…

JAKARTA — Palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing a local district head for revoking their permits, the second such case filed since authorities last year rescinded…

JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of…

JAKARTA — An abrupt ban on coal exports by the Indonesian government for the whole month of January, on fears of a domestic supply shortage, should be a wake-up call…

Update, 2/10/2022: The Indonesian government has now clarified that it will not seek to reclassify palm plantations as forests, read about it here. JAKARTA — Across large swaths of Indonesia, forests…

JAKARTA — A “social forestry” program administered by the Indonesian government to grant land rights to communities has not been effective in preventing deforestation, and in some cases has even…

In 2021, Mongabay’s investigative journalism set out to hold powerful figures accountable for deforestation and pollution, and the mistreatment of vulnerable communities trying to protect local ecosystems. Using data-driven analysis…

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s land and forest fires burned a greater area this year than in 2020, with most of the fires occurring in West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara,…

JAKARTA — In 2020, residents of Suka Mukti village in southern Sumatra paid 10 million rupiah each, about $700, to a government agency to obtain titles to their land —…

BALI, Indonesia — Satellite imagery has detected deforestation in a gold mining concession in Indonesia that overlaps with the habitat of the most threatened great ape in the world. U.S.-based…

BALI, Indonesia — Palm oil industry watchdogs are warning of a possible surge in deforestation across Indonesia, after the government ended a three-year freeze on issuing permits for new plantations.…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s…

PEKANBARU, Riau — Anti-corruption investigators in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland have arrested a local official for allegedly taking bribes from a palm oil company in exchange for extending its business…

BALI — Indonesia has revised down its 2021 target for rehabilitating mangroves in light of "technical hurdles" brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors, according to the nation’s…