All Mongabay article on bribes
and corruptions involved Indonesian palm oil sector
Fears over Indonesian president’s demand for
unfettered investment
Indonesia forest-clearing ban is made permanent,
but labeled ‘propaganda’
81% of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations flouting
regulations, audit finds
War on graft in mining, palm oil hit by new law
weakening Indonesian enforcer
RSPO questions effectiveness of Indonesian palm
plantation moratorium
Indonesian politician at heart of permit scandal
dies ahead of graft trial
New bill could legalize ‘land banking’ by
Indonesian plantation firms
Indonesia for Sale: in-depth series on corruption,
palm oil and rainforests launches
Is Indonesia’s celebrated antigraft agency missing
the corruption for the trees?
Sinarmas Palm oil executives arrested in bribery
scandal in Indonesia
Indonesia’s anti-graft agency ‘eager to intervene’
in palm oil sector
Vast palm oil project in Papua must be investigated
by government, watchdogs say
Few eco commitments and suspect funding for
Indonesia presidential hopefuls
Indonesian candidates find common ground in support
for palm oil
Indonesian minister blasted over palm permit for
graft-tainted concession
Not in my backyard: Indonesian official fights
corrupt palm concession
What we learned from two years of investigating
corrupt land deals in Indonesia
Search Results for palm oil and corruption
(Read the first article in the
series, "The palm oil fiefdom.") Indonesia, a nation of thousands of
islands draped across the equator, is in the grips of a social and…
A little-known provision in a
sweeping deregulation package now before the Indonesian parliament could make
it easier for plantation firms to preserve forests within the areas they have
been licensed…
JAKARTA — A year after the
Indonesian government imposed a ban on issuing new licenses for oil palm
plantations, the leading certification body for sustainable sourcing of the
crop has…
This story was co-published with
The Gecko Project. Additional support was provided by Earthsight. (Baca dalam
Bahasa Indonesia.) I. The movement begins Late one rainy night in August 2013,
a…
JAKARTA — More than 80 percent of
oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the crop,
are operating in violation of numerous regulations, a government audit has…
TAPUWATU, Indonesia — Muhammad
Arfa says he thinks a miracle saved his home. A wave of mud that swept through
this riverside village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists
say they fear for what’s left of Indonesia’s tropical rainforests, following a
fiery call by President Joko Widodo threatening action against anyone hindering
investment in the…
JAKARTA — Indigenous rights
activists in Indonesia have condemned local authorities over the death in
custody of a farmer accused of stealing palm fruit from a plantation company in
Borneo.…
JAKARTA — Darwan Ali, an
Indonesian politician at the center of a palm oil licensing scandal and charged
in a separate corruption case, died on Nov. 18 before he could…
JAKARTA — In late September,
international news outlets caught flak for their coverage of Indonesia’s
largest mass protests since the 1998 uprising that led to the fall of the
dictator…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s
anti-corruption agency has charged a former politician from Borneo in
connection with a port development project, in a move that could shed light on
an earlier scandal…
JAKARTA — Laode Muhammad Syarif
has been spearheading a critical war against corruption in Indonesia for the
past four years. Since December 2015, he’s served as a leader of the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president
has made permanent a temporary moratorium on forest-clearing permits for
plantations and logging. It’s a policy the government says has proven effective
in curtailing deforestation, but…
A unique island ecosystem and
culture lying 270 kilometers (170 miles) off Papua New Guinea is once more in
the crosshairs. Over the past decade, Woodlark Islanders have defended their…
The fall of the Suharto regime
and the beginning of the democratic or reformasi era in Indonesia coincided
with a massive surge in deforestation. One of the central reasons for…
This week, the Indonesian
electoral commission confirmed the results of the April 17 election that gave
President Joko Widodo a solid victory over his challenger, former army special
forces general…
Just over two years ago, The
Gecko Project and Mongabay set out to investigate the hidden story behind twin
environmental and social crises unfolding in Indonesia. The country’s
rainforests, the…
JAKARTA — A local official in
Indonesia has mounted a non-legal challenge against the national government for
permitting the development of a corruption-riddled oil palm concession in his
district. Amirudin…
KENDARI, Indonesia — A coil of
barbed wire separated Southeast Sulawesi Deputy Governor Lukman Abunawas and
his police escort from the angry crowd as he read out the statement they…
On today’s episode, we speak with
Oliver Metcalf, lead author of a recent study that used bioacoustic recordings
and machine learning to track birds in New Zealand after they’d been…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President
Joko Widodo and his rival in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, are
expected to address the issues of environmental protection and management
during the second of…
Small farmers feel the pressure
as Ecuador’s palm oil sector expands The first commercial oil palm trees were
planted in Ecuador in 1953. Since then, the country has become Latin…
While many people from Atlantida,
Honduras, are attempting to escape desperate poverty and deepening political
violence by traveling some 3,000 miles to reach the border of the U.S., a few…
JAKARTA — Three executives from
one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil firms were arrested over the weekend by the
nation’s anti-graft agency after an employee was caught bribing politicians to…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo
has signed a moratorium on new licenses for oil palm plantations. The
presidential instruction, signed on Sept. 19, will remain in place for no more
than…
This is the first story in a
two-part series on logging in the Solomon Islands. The second article, which
focuses on the island of Nende and how residents of one…
The promise of jobs and
prosperity often helps palm oil companies convince skeptical local stakeholders
to accept development on their lands. However, there has been little objective
evidence showing whether…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists
have blasted threats by a senior Indonesian minister that the country will withdraw
from the Paris climate accord over a European plan to phase out palm…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s
anti-corruption agency has joined a growing chorus of criticism against a
government decision to permit deforestation in a concession at the heart of a
bribery scandal. It…
JAKARTA — Indonesian President
Joko Widodo and his challenger in this year’s election, Prabowo Subianto, have
both vowed to increase the use of palm oil in biofuels to achieve energy…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — While
Southeast Asia is known as one of the world’s fastest-growing economic regions,
home to booming metropolises like Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and…
The Ucayali region, one of the
Peruvian Amazon’s most deforested areas according to the Monitoring of the
Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), has an ever-growing land trafficking problem.
There is increasing…
The Indonesian government must
put an immediate halt to land clearing in the Tanah Merah project, a vast
stretch of land earmarked to become the world’s biggest oil palm plantation,…
Indonesia’s graft-ridden palm oil
sector is in need of an “overhaul,” according to the nation’s anti-corruption
agency. The agency, known as the KPK, is helping guide a sweeping review of…
In 2005, an Indonesian election
commissioner named Mulyana Kusumah visited a hotel room in Jakarta to hand over
150 million rupiah, then worth more than $15,000, in cash to an…
564
Search Results for "palm oil and corruption"
Major agribusiness firms are
using opaque corporate structures to gain access to palm oil sourced from
plantations operating in violation of their sustainability commitments, according
to an investigation into the…
In July last year, Abdon Nababan,
one of Indonesia’s most prominent activists, announced his intention to run for
governor in his home province of North Sumatra. During his decade-long tenure…
The uproar over Iceland Foods’
decision to ban palm oil from its own-label products has been loud and swift.
While many applaud the move as a bold stance against deforestation…
JAKARTA — An effort by the
Indonesian government to compile a single map of land-use cover across the vast
archipelago is nearing completion seven years after it began, but continues…
(Baca dalam Bahasa
Indonesia.) Prologue: Jakarta, 2013 It was long after the close of
business when Indonesia’s highest-ranking judge stepped out of his official
residence in Jakarta to greet some guests, one…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first article…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first article…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia's deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first…
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…
On today’s episode, new
revelations about “shadow companies” and how they factor into Mongabay’s
ongoing investigation into the corruption fueling Indonesia’s deforestation and
land rights crisis. Listen here: Our…
SAMARINDA, Indonesia — Rahmawati,
a homemaker, remembers being ill on a December day in 2014, at her home in
Samarinda, the capital of the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan, when…
JAKARTA — Oil palm farmers in
Indonesia are mounting a legal challenge to get a bigger share of a government
fund they complain is being misused to subsidize biofuel producers.…
Two decades on from the fall of
the Suharto dictatorship, Indonesia’s transition to democracy is regarded as a
global success story. But lurking beneath the surface is an ugly truth.…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first article…
Residents of the last district in
South Kalimantan still free of mining and palm oil say they will fight to
protect their villages, even as new laws smooth the path for mining companies.
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first article…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia's deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first…
Budiardi was one of the more
colorful characters we met in our reporting for “ The palm oil fiefdom.”
Thickset and outspoken, he was previously a member of the local…
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…
(Baca dalam Bahasa
Indonesia.) Prologue: Jakarta, 2007 On Nov. 29, 2007, on the tenth floor
of a marble-clad office block in Jakarta, the scion of one of Indonesia’s
wealthiest families met with…
A “fire economy” has emerged in
Indonesia in which the blazes tearing through the country’s land and forests,
driven largely by the global demand for palm oil, are lining the…
agle stood on the bank of the
Kapuas River. He rolled a small stone over and over in his right hand. He wore
black spandex shorts, a black t-shirt with…
My organization recently
published a guidebook and online resource (www.timberinvestigator.info) for
activists and communities on how to investigate illegal logging and track flows
of illegal wood, particularly those destined for…
We met James Watt in his home
village of Bangkal during the reporting of “The palm oil fiefdom,” in early
2017. Bangkal lies on the banks of Sembuluh, a sprawling…
JAKARTA — A district chief from
Indonesian Borneo has been named a corruption suspect over the issuance of an
oil palm plantation permit, opening the door for law enforcers to…
In their new book Frances Seymour
and Jonah Busch explore solutions to help arrest the global loss of tropical
forests. In particular, the authors lay out the potential impact of…
Papua New Guinea announced last
week that it is deploying its military to quell violence in Hela Province, home
to the country's largest oil and gas project. Tribal conflict in…
A wildlife reserve and
surrounding areas on Indonesia’s main western island of Sumatra were declared
the country’s newest national park on Friday, part of the festivities for World
Environment Day.…
Bill Kayong, a dedicated land
rights activist and member of the opposition party in Malaysia’s Sarawak state,
was killed in a drive-by shooting while waiting at a traffic light in…
It must be one of the most
extensive compendiums of suffering and struggle ever produced in Indonesia –
the result of a national inquiry into land conflicts affecting indigenous
peoples, published…
n December of last year, a small
group of government officials took a long arduous trip to visit the site of a
remote palm oil plantation in the Republic of…
Masrani stood at the confluence
of two rivers in Indonesian Borneo as his father recited the most dreadful
oath. The extreme form of sumpah adat, a ritualistic nuclear option for…
A new civil action group staged a
protest against deadly haze pollution in the capital of Indonesia's Riau
province on Monday. The Riau Pos newspaper reported hundreds demonstrated
against the smoke…
Deforestation for oil palm in
Indonesia's Riau province. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Palm oil giant First
Resources has committed to eliminate deforestation and rights abuses from its
supply chain, making…
Forest cover status in Sarawak,
Sabah, and Brunei as of 2009, according to Bryan et al 2013. Sarawak's leader
has allegedly pledged to stop granting industrial timber and palm oil…
This is the first in a two-part
series about the EU's influence in illegal deforestation. The second part will
be published shortly. Sunset in the Amazon. Photo by Sue Wren.…
Logging road in neighboring
Sabah. Legal logging has caused substantial forest loss and degradation in
Sarawak over the past 30 years, depleting canopy cover, altering forest
structure, exacerbated hunting, and…
Rainforest in Riau. Photos by
Rhett Butler Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) questioned the
former Minister of Forestry about his role in altering zoning to facilitate oil
palm expansion into…
Little-known 'biological-jewel'
faces commercial logging A number of the world's top conservation scientists
have raised concerns about plans for commercial logging on Woodlark Island, a
hugely biodiverse rainforest island off…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo
has appointed conservationist Nazir Foead to head up a newly-created peatland
restoration agency, which aims to resurrect peatlands devastated by recent
fires. The establishment of the…
urilo Reis was guiding a group of
tourists on his private nature reserve in a remote part of northeastern Peru
two months ago when he came across more than a…
Farmers in South Sumatra, an
epicenter of Indonesia’s haze crisis, unfurled banners last week expressing
their readiness to protect forests and peatlands from fire – and calling for
President Joko…
Residents of Paser, a district in
Indonesia's East Kalimantan province, protest against a coal mining company in
February. Photo courtesy of the Indigenous People's Alliance of the Archipelago
(AMAN) A…
Executive Summary : Given
globalization and rising demands for energy and raw natural resources,
extractive industries and their investors deepen the search to the last reaches
of the planet for…
Part 2 of 5 of a series on palm
oil financing. Part I. Deforestation for palm oil production. Photos by Rhett
A. Butler. Today, oil palm is Indonesia’s most important…
New oil palm plantation
established on peatland outside Palangkaraya in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan
Province on the island of Borneo. Photos by Rhett A. Butler Development of oil
palm plantations is…
Google Earth image showing oil
palm plantations and forest in Sarawak, Malaysia. A book alleging massive
corruption by Sarawak's long-time ruler, Abdul Taib bin Mahmud, is being
released despite apparent…
Of Indonesia’s 100 GW in new
power generation capacity by 2035, half will be coal-fired, says IEA. Indonesia
cannot build power stations fast enough. And neither can most of its…
The contested plantation. Photo:
Save Our Borneo A palm oil company in Central Kalimantan continues to operate
business as usual, despite a Supreme Court ruling confirming it has no legal…
Innovation in Tropical Forest
Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Gabriella Fredriksson Sun bears with tracking
collars. Photo courtesy of Gabriella Fredriksson. In 1997, Gabriella
Fredriksson, then a young PhD student, was…
Papua New Guinea's Prime
Minister, Peter O'Neill, released a statement last week saying that hugely
controversial land leases under the country's Special Agricultural and Business
Leases (SABLs) will be cancelled…
As one of the world’s largest
palm oil producers, Indonesia is often at the receiving end of criticism and
protests by activists, and even by its own people. Its poor…
A new online tool, dubbed
ForestDefender, aims to help indigenous people understand and implement their
rights in regard to forests. The database, developed by the Center for
International Environmental Law…
A mob of 150 palm oil workers has
disrupted court proceedings against Kalista Alam, an Indonesian palm oil
company accused of illegally converting blocks of protected peat forests for
an…
On Thursday, 17 October 2013
Mongabay.com and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) co-hosted a
discussion on environmental issues related to palm oil. The discussion involved
representatives from WWF,…
Land conflicts pose a serious –
and often overlooked – risk to development projects in emerging market
economies, warns a new report. Indigenous communities have claims to nearly one
third…
A new report lays out key
leverage points for shifting Indonesia's palm oil industry toward a greener
development path. The report, authored by Daemeter Consulting and The Nature
Conservancy (TNC),…
An environmental activist in
Gabon is facing jail time and a $10,000 fine over his campaign against a
Singaporean agroindustrial giant's plan to develop tens of thousands of
hectares in…
Jambi’s Rapid Forest Destruction
Although the province of Jambi is considered a "late bloomer" in
terms of palm oil industry development, its rate of expansion is far from slow.
Located…
Acacia plantation in Riau
Province, Indonesia. The former governor of Indonesia’s Riau province has been
sentenced to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay almost $90,000 in fines for…
New oil palm plantation in the
GSK landscape. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. An important reserve that contains a
block of fast-dwindling lowland swamp forest in Riau Province is facing…
An infrastructure company with
ties to Sarawak's chief minister has just landed a $196 million contract to
build transmission lines, sparking new complaints about cronyism and corruption
in the Malaysian…
Corruption and mismanagement in
Indonesia’s forest sector have cost the government billions of dollars in
losses in recent years, including over $7 billion in losses from 2007-2011,
Human Rights Watch…
A coalition of anti-corruption
and environmental NGOs has urged Indonesia’s anti-graft body to investigate
cases of corruption in the natural resources sector. Corruption linked to the
forestry, mining and plantation…
The challenge of trying to save
Indonesia's forests The basic premise of the Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program seems simple: rich nations pay
tropical countries for preserving…
Following the release of video
footage apparently linking Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud to kickbacks for
forestry concessions, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International is
calling for the Malaysian leader to immediately…
Future hanging in balance? Borneo
orang-utan. Photo by Rhett Butler. Borneo will likely lose half of its
orangutans if current deforestation and forest conversion trends continue,
warns a comprehensive new…
Logging roads and damaged forest
in Sarawak compared with the healthy forest of Brunei. Photo courtesy of Google
Earth. Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has headed the Malaysian state of Sarawak…
Oil palm plantation KPK arrests
Sulawesi regent for alleged palm oil corruption Indonesia’s Corruption
Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested Amran Batalipu, the regent of Buol,
Central Sulawesi, on charges that he…
Land-clearing for oil palm in
Sumatra. A subsidiary of agribusiness giant Cargill has paid a $1 million fine
for clearing land for oil palm outside its concession, a move that…
U.S. government sources
characterized the ruler of Malaysia's Sarawak as "highly corrupt" and
plagued with conflicts of interest, according to secret cables released today
by Wikileaks. The cables show that…
Despite rising criticism over
deforestation and human rights abuses, Sarawak is maintaining its target of 2
million hectares of oil palm plantations by 2020, reports Malaysian state
press. Speaking with…
Logging roads criss-cross
Sarawak's forests. Photo courtesy of Google Earth. Tax evasion, kick-backs,
bribery, and corruption all make appearances in a shocking new undercover video
by Global Witness that shows…
Over 300 Penan people are living
in makeshift shelters as they blockade roads to the Murum dam construction
site. Photo courtesy of Sarawak Conservation Alliance for Natural Environment
(SCANE). Indigenous…
Baby orangutan in Sabah,
Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. On Saturday Prince William and his wife
Catherine Middleton visited Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysia
as part of…
Strangler fig in Java 70% of
Indonesia’s coral reefs damaged 70 percent of Indonesia’s coral reefs have some
degree of damage found an assessment by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences…
Indigenous protest in Sarawak.
Image courtesy of The Borneo Project. In the 1980s images of loincloth-clad
tribesmen blockading blockading logging roads in Malaysian Borneo shocked the
world. But while their…
Borneo rainforest. Photos by
Rhett A. Butler. In late May I had the opportunity to fly from Kota Kinabalu in
Malaysian Borneo to Imbak Canyon and back. These are some…
Map of the Herakles/SGSO
plantation in Cameroon. Courtesy of SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Industrial
palm oil production is coming to Africa, its ancestral home. And like other
places where expansion…
Forest destruction in Indonesian
Borneo. Indonesia's forests were cleared at a rate of 1.5 million hectares per
year between 2000 and 2009, reports a new satellite-based assessment by Forest
Watch…
A thousand Penan indigenous
people have been forcibly moved from their rainforest home to monoculture
plantations, reports Survival International. To make way for the Murum dam, the
Malaysian state government…
An undercover investigation has
found evidence that a subsidiary of Malaysian palm oil company has illegally
cleared forest in breach of the Indonesia's moratorium on new permits in
primary forest…
WARNING: Graphic photos below.
Recently cut white rhino horns in Zimbabwe. Photos: © Michel Gunther /
WWF-Canon. Few animals face as violent, as well organized, and as determined an
enemy…
Corruption in poor countries
shouldn't deter developed countries from supporting initial efforts to save the
world's tropical forests, Norway's environment minister told Reuters. Erik
Solheim said rich countries must be…
Wandojo Siswanto, one of the
negotiators for Indonesia's delegation at 2009 climate talks in Copenhagen and
a key architect of its Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation
(REDD) partnership with…
Location map showing key areas
visited during field study by the NGO Grassroots (from Case study of IOI Pelita
Plantations operations and practices, and its impact upon the community of…
Updated 4/4 to include responses
from IOI Corporation Bhd and RAN People of Long Teran Kenan blockading the road
to their lands in Sarawak. Image courtesy of RAN. A community…
Papua New Guinea, as viewed from
Google Earth, covers the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, as well as
other Pacific Islands. During a meeting in March 2011…
Environmentalists, scientists,
and locals have won the battle against a controversial coal plant in the
Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo. The State and Federal government
announced today that…
Logging roads and damaged forest
in Sarawak compared with healthy forest in Brunei. In March Taib claimed that
70 percent of Sarawak's forest was "intact", a claim that was
quickly…
Efforts to slow deforestation in
Indonesia should include curtailing further expansion of forestry holdings by
giant conglomerates, says an Indonesian activist group. Analyzing data from the
Ministry of Forest's Production…
Logging roads and damaged forest
in Sarawak compared with the healthy forest of Brunei. Photo courtesy of Google
Earth. Images from Google Earth show a sharp contract between forest cover…
Logging roads criss-cross
Sarawak's forests. Photo courtesy of Google Earth. At the end of this month it
will be 30 years since Abdul Taib Mahmud came to power in the…
Forest cover loss for Sumatera
and Kalimantan mapped at moderate spatial resolution for the 2000–2008 interval
superimposed on a Landsat image composite (bands 5/7/4 as R/G/B). Image and
caption courtesy…
Progress over the past 25 years
in recognizing indigenous peoples' rights to land and resources has been
interrupted by a worldwide commodity boom, argues a new report published by
the…
This article—written in April
2010, updated in August 2010, and posted for the first time today—is part of
larger "Fate of Forests" series. The commercial shows a typical
office setting.…
The government of Sarawak aims to
convert more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of tropical forest by
2020, according to the Malaysian state's Land Development Minister, James
Masing.…
Mongabay.com's Rhett Butler
reviews what happened this week in forest news Dutch to use only certified palm
oil by 2015 The Netherlands has committed to only using palm oil certified…
The rise of industrial
deforestation and its implications for conservation. The image of rainforests
being torn down by giant bulldozers, felled by chainsaw-wielding loggers, and
torched by large-scale developers has…
Allegations of government
corruption and corporate kick-backs are swirling around a planned 300 MW
Chinese coal plant in the Malaysian state of Sabah. While the plan to build the
coal…
A new report by JOANGOHutan, the
Malaysian Network of Indigenous Peoples and Non-Governmental Organizations,
paints an atmosphere of abuse and ambivalence toward indigenous communities
embroiled in land disputes in the…
New report documents billions of
dollars in losses from Indonesia's reforestation fund between 1989 and 2009.
The Indonesian government squandered billions of dollars in funds set aside for
reforestation through…
Balikpapan Bay in East Kalimantan
is home to an incredible variety of ecosystems: in the shallow bay waters
endangered dugong feed on sea grasses and salt water crocodiles sleep; along…
An interview with Craig Hanson
and Moray McLeish of the World Resources Institute. Jeremy conducted the interview;
Rhett wrote the introduction, laid out the page, and developed the images. Oil…
This interview is an excerpt from
The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the
animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife
investigators. "The…
This letter was submitted to The
New Straits Times a week ago in response to an editorial penned by Alan Oxley.
The New Straits Times has not published the letter…
As nations from around the world
meet at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan to discuss ways
to stem the loss of biodiversity worldwide, two prominent researchers argue…
Indonesia will revoke existing
forestry licenses to cut down natural forests under the billion dollar deal
climate deal signed with Norway last week, reports Reuters. Agus Purnomo, head
of the…
Indonesian President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono has issued new regulations, which will allow underground
mining in protected areas, according to the Jakarta Post. The new rules will
also allow power plants,…
Malaysia and China have agreed to
an $11 billion deal that will turn a vast area of Sarawak, a Malaysian state in
northern Borneo, into an industrial corridor for mining…
Science, Economics, and REDD:
Struggling for Balance My friend Rezal Kusumaatmadja contacted me in July to
ask if I could join him and some of his associates for a couple…
An interview with Hardi
Baktiantoro, Director of the Centre for Orangutan Protection Despite worldwide
attention and concern, prime orangutan habitat across Sumatra and Borneo
continues to be destroyed by loggers…
Investigation finds destruction
of orangutan habitat for oil palm in Borneo Investigation finds destruction of
orangutan habitat for oil palm in Borneo mongabay.com September 2, 2007 Chart
showing annual palm…
Indonesia: No more rainforest
clearing for palm oil Indonesia: No more rainforest clearing for palm oil
mongabay.com June 5, 2007 Indonesian Minister for Environment Rachmat Witoelar
said Indonesia will not…
EDITOR'S NOTE: Borneo, the third
largest island in the world, was once covered with dense rainforests. With
swampy coastal areas fringed with mangrove forests and a mountainous interior,
much of…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s parliament
looks set to push through contentious bills that threaten to roll back
environmental protections in favor of facilitating business. Activists have
denounced the decision to resume…
This article was co-published
with The Gecko Project. KOKOE, Indonesia — For years, this eastern Indonesian
village of fishermen and seaweed farmers simmered with anger over the pollution
of its…
Without safeguards, REDD could
mimic logging concessions in Indonesia, a model fraught with corruption and
conflicts over land, say indigenous rights' groups.
Are the economic benefits of palm
oil exaggerated? Does palm oil alleviate rural poverty in Malaysia? Rhett A.
Butler, mongabay.com October 24, 2007 While it is often argued that the…
United States and Indonesia to
fight illegal logging United States and Indonesia to fight illegal logging
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com April 5, 2006 The United States and Indonesia
today agreed…
JAKARTA — Experts have warned
that a slate of sweeping deregulation planned by the Indonesian government
could prove disastrous for the environment and create even more conflicts over
land and…
JAKARTA — Activists say they’ve
identified the business tycoons who control land in the area slated for
Indonesia’s new capital and who could potentially benefit from the $33.5
billion mega…
2019 closed out a "lost
decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from
Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on
environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
This article was co-published
with The Gecko Project. Indonesian government officials have alleged that
permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua
province were falsified, leading to the criminal…
JAKARTA — Indonesian forensics
expert Bambang Hero Saharjo has been awarded a top environmental prize for his
work in delivering justice against oil palm plantations accused of allowing
fires on…
BENGKULU, Indonesia — Hearings in
a lawsuit filed by residents over a newly built Chinese-funded coal-fired power
plant in Sumatra have revealed a litany of irregularities behind the permit
that…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President
Joko Widodo has announced his new cabinet for his second and final term in
office, naming controversial figures with strong ties to the extractive
industries. Introducing…
This article was co-published
with The Gecko Project. When Indonesian government officials received a
credible allegation that the permits underpinning a giant oil palm plantation
project in Papua province had…
JAKARTA — Anti-corruption
investigators in Indonesia have charged two government officials for allegedly
taking $1.6 million in bribes to grant permits for oil palm plantations
spanning just over half the…
This article was produced in
partnership with The Gecko Project. When Mika Ganobal, a 35-year-old civil
servant, mounted the top of a van in the ramshackle town of Dobo to…
Last year, when we published the
report High Risk in the Rainforest, it was far from the first time that palm
oil company Golden-Agri Resources (GAR) and its subsidiary Golden…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists
in Indonesia have called on President Joko Widodo to use his second-five-year
term to strengthen protections of the country’s rich natural resources, after
he failed to…
JAKARTA — Indonesian lawmakers
have chosen not to pass a raft of controversial legislation that critics say
would dismantle environmental and social protections, in the face of massive
student-led protests.…
This article was co-published
with The Gecko Project. When a string of palm oil companies arrived in
the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost
Papua…
SAMARINDA/UJOH BILANG, Indonesia
— For nearly a week this summer, the residents of Ujoh Bilang in Indonesian
Borneo’s East Kalimantan province were virtually disconnected from the rest of
the world.…
KENDARI, Indonesia — Next year
will mark the completion of a nearly mile-long bridge being built over this
booming industrial city’s iconic bay, say government officials here. But
researchers studying…
Europe’s new plan to address its
role in driving rampant, often illegal deforestation through its consumption of
commodities is finally ready. It has taken over 10 years to write. It…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia
has sentenced the governor of the Sumatran province of Aceh to seven years in
jail after finding him guilty of corruption in connection with…
MEDAN, Indonesia — Police have
charged the brother of a top official in Sumatra with clearing a protected
forest for a palm oil plantation. Musa Idishah, better known as Dodi…
Companies and their investors are
exposing themselves to massive legal and financial risks by trading,
sometimes unwittingly, in products derived from illegally harvested timber,
according to a new report. Published earlier…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia)
Prologue: Johor Baru, 2012 In December 2012, at a press conference on the
sidelines of an Islamic business forum in Malaysia, a man named Chairul Anhar…
QUITO — The world is losing its
tropical forests at an alarming rate, despite increased efforts to save them. A
recent study now shows that the best way to tackle…
In the coming weeks and months, a
number of Guatemalan palm oil producers are expecting to receive memberships in
the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a move that…
JAKARTA — Investigators in
Indonesia have arrested a politician on charges of corruption stemming from the
issuance of mining permits on the island of Borneo. Supian Hadi is the head…
Last week, The Gecko Project, Mongabay,
Tempo and Malaysiakini published an investigation into the story behind the
Tanah Merah project, a giant oil palm plantation under development in Papua,
Indonesia.…
An investigation by Mongabay has
uncovered new evidence suggesting one of the world’s biggest paper producers,
Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, took deliberate measures to disguise its
ownership of a…
OSLO, Norway — It has been a
decade since the United Nations launched REDD+, an ambitious program to
incentivize forest restoration and conservation in developing countries, as a
part of…
In June this year, elections will
take place in 171 districts, provinces and municipalities across Indonesia. On
paper, millions of citizens in the world’s third-largest democracy will be
afforded the…
JAKARTA — Environmental experts
and activists are closely watching a lawsuit filed against an academic whose
testimony helped convict a governor on corruption charges, in a case many fear
could…
In the village of Tewah, in the
heart of Indonesian Borneo, stands a wooden church named Immanuel. When the
church was founded by German missionaries more than a century ago,…
One of the world’s biggest paper
producers continues to deny that it secretly owns most of the companies
supplying it with wood, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. In the…
In the leadup to the release of
the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, our series examining the
corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis, we are
republishing the first article…
After Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the
United Nations special rapporteur on indigenous rights, was included on a list
of some 600 people the government of her native Philippines wants declared as
terrorists,…
We are in the midst of the
greatest global effort in history to end tropical deforestation, driven largely
by the importance of tropical forests for tackling climate change. An exciting…
Arkani, an elderly Dayak man,
drew a telling comparison between the plight of his community and that of the
orangutans inhabiting a nearby rainforest, in a part of Borneo that…
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…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — The
government of Indonesia’s Aceh province will reject applications for new
mineral and coal-mining projects in the region for another half year, in a bid
to…
JAKARTA — Activists in Indonesia
are calling for a set of federal guidelines on orangutan conservation that will
compel local authorities and companies to take a more active role in…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian
government has still not made publicly available its detailed maps and related
documents on plantation companies operating in the country, a year after the
nation’s highest…
As COP23 negotiators meet in
Bonn, indigenous and rural leaders warn that time is running out to protect
global forests — a crucial hedge against perilous global warming.
A district chief from the
Indonesian island of Sulawesi was named a corruption suspect this week over
"unlawful" nickel mining licenses he issued to eight companies. Aswad
Sulaiman, the former…
Tropical timber has earned a bad reputation.
When we think of timber from lush, tropical forests, it conjures up images of
valuable old-growth trees pillaged by logging companies and illegal…
JAKARTA -- Palm oil and paper
lobby groups have asked Indonesia’s highest court to strike down rules holding
plantation firms strictly liable for fires that occur on their land. The…
As Indonesia proceeds with its
campaign to stamp out illegality in the palm oil and mining sectors, canceling
thousands of permits nationwide, a Sumatran court has restored a coal
company's…
Indonesia is now one of the
world’s largest exporters of coal, an industry that contributes around four
percent of the country’s gross domestic product mostly through exports to China
and…
MEDAN, Indonesia — The top mining
official in North Sumatra has been arrested for corruption. Police in the
province caught Eddy Saputra Salim red-handed taking a bribe. It was just…
Pulp and paper supplier PT Bumi
Mekar Hijau has been declared guilty of causing fires in South Sumatra by an
appeals court in the Indonesian province, reversing a decision that…
This is an update to our
"Tracking Jokowi" project. Last year's summary: 9 months in, how has
Indonesian president Jokowi fared on the environment? In 2014, Joko Widodo
became Indonesia’s…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — A
rescue center in Borneo is trying to decide what to do with an albino orangutan
whose genes may pose a threat to local populations, should the animal…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo
scored a victory in his campaign to prosecute haze-causing companies on
Thursday with the ruling by a Jakarta district court against PT National Sago
Prima (NSP),…
It's a dangerous time to take a
stand for the environment. 2015 was the worst year on record for killings of
people defending their forests, rivers, and lands from industrial…
In May, the Indonesian government
announced that nearly half of the peatlands protected under a 2011 forestry
moratorium have actually been damaged or converted. Last week, the forestry
ministry said…
"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…
Indonesia lost nearly $9 billion
in state revenue from unreported timber sales between 2003 and 2014, according
to a recent, presidentially sanctioned investigation by the national antigraft
agency into the…
This week data from Guido van der
Werf of the Global Fire Emissions Database showed that carbon emissions from
fires raging across Indonesia's peatlands have surpassed 1.4 billion tons of…
The development of REDD+ in
Indonesia as an experiment in bringing together carbon abatement, equity
development and biodiversity protection is continuing to attract global
attention.
The outgoing head of Indonesia's
State Intelligence Agency (BIN), Marciano Norman (left), talks with the head of
the Indonesian investment board, Franky Sibarani, at the signing of a agreement
between…
On March 10, Indonesian activists
won a major battle in the war for transparency over natural resources when
their Supreme Court ordered the coal-happy Kutai Kartanegara district
government to hand…
The government of Norway
announced on Wednesday it would continue its environmental funding partnership
with Indonesia, offering $50 million to support the archipelago’s newly created
Peat Restoration Agency. “This is…
Banner Photo Credit: Bjorn Vaughn
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is preparing significant steps toward
addressing the underlying causes of Indonesia’s devastating wildfires,
including an enhanced moratorium on licenses to exploit peatlands, but…
ine months into the landmark
presidency of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, Indonesia’s first head of state to emerge
from neither the political elite nor the military, the hope that ran to…
Part 3 of 5 of a series on palm
oil financing. Part I and Part II. Note: this article draws heavily from
Seymour el al 2015. Rainforest canopy seen from…
Sprawl near Law Vegas. Photos by
Rhett A. Butler If there's one thing most governments and even political
parties appear to agree on it's a desire for more infrastructure, i.e.…
Rainforest in Riau, Indonesia.
Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Last fall Indonesia elected its first president with
no ties to the established political order or the military. Joko Widodo's
election…
Illegally logged rainforest tree
in Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo by Rhett A.
Butler. Amid government schemes to curb illegal land clearing and
systematically enhance a struggling…
Borneo consistently makes the
list of the world’s “biodiversity hotspots” – areas full of a wide variety of
forms of life found nowhere else, but which are also under threat.…
Enormous wood fiber concession
appears in West Kalimantan, threatening critical habitat. Environmental groups
cry foul, claiming impact assessments were not properly done before plantation
company set up shop. A major…
Conversion of peatland for an
industrial plantation in Riau, Sumatra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler A pair of
local communities' five-year slog to establish village forest management areas
in Riau…
This article is the second in a
two-part series about logging in Malaysia. The first part can be seen here Two
international NGOs have called out Malaysia in recent months…
This article is the first in a
two-part series about logging in Malaysia. Read the second part here. A recent
report by the international affairs think tank Chatham House has…
Activists have petitioned the
world's largest sovereign wealth fund to drop its investment in a company they
say is linked to large-scale corruption in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. In…
Maliau Falls in Borneo. The
global economy depends on natural capital such as freshwater. Photo by: Rhett
A. Butler. Last month, Norway's stock exchange, the Oslo Børs, introduced a
way…
Trimeresurus gunaleni was
previously lumped with other pit vipers, inhabits area that may contain more
species yet-unknown to science A new pit viper was discovered by researchers
working in Sumatra,…
Logging roads and damaged forest
in Sarawak compared with the healthy forest of Brunei. In 2011, former chief
minister Taib Mahmud famously claimed that 70 percent of Sarawak's forests
were…
Indonesia's rate of forest loss
is now the highest in the world. A concerted push by political elites to
undermine Indonesia's president before he even takes office could stymie
progress…
21 million hectares earmarked for
coal mining, including more than half of East Kalimantan Out of the jungles of
East Borneo in Indonesia comes the fire that fuels Asia’s burgeoning…
Illegal clearing for agriculture
caused almost 50 percent of the world's forest loss Nearly 50 percent of
tropical deforestation to make room for commercial agriculture between 2000 and
2012 was…
It took five hours by boat from
Kepayang in the Indonesian province of South Sumatra to arrive at this remote
river community, where most of the residents are illegal loggers.…
An area of rainforest APP has
pledged to protect in Riau Province, on the island of Sumatra. Photo by Rhett
A. Butler. Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), Indonesia's largest pulp…
Innovation in Tropical Forest
Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Nigel Sizer Forest clearing in Malaysian Borneo.
Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Nigel Sizer has worked on the forefront of global
forest…
CITES has responded to this
commentary, refuting certain points: Information on CITES and great apes,
including on the outcomes of Standing Committee 65, can be found on the CITES
website.…
Tropical rainforest. Photos by
Rhett Butler. Since 2008 Norway has been the single largest foreign donor to
tropical forest conservation, putting more than 10 billion Norwegian Krone, or
$1.6 billion,…
Yet, many communities, indigenous
people lack the rights to protect their own land Forests provide vital habitat
for many species of animals and plants. In particular, tropical forests support
the…
Zamzami in Siak, Riau on May 23,
2014. Photos by Rhett Butler. Indonesia has become notorious for its high rate
of forest loss, but there are nascent signs of progress.…
Intricately carved, meticulously
designed, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars: this is
"hongmu," or Chinese luxury furniture reflecting the elite styles of
the Ming and Qing dynasties. But while…
Innovation in Tropical Forest
Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Phillip Fearnside Pasture meets gallery forest
in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. How much is a forest really
worth?…
Land use in Sarawak A new online
platform released by the Bruno Manser Fund reveals large-scale destruction of
Sarawak's rainforests, peatlands, and traditional lands. Drawing from a variety
of sources,…
Protest staged by Walhi Jambi.
Sinar Mas Group allegedly defrauded the Indonesian government of $15 million by
avoiding reforestation taxes on 2,000 hectares in Jambi province. The land is
reportedly…
Peat forest in Borneo. All photos
by Rhett A. Butler. Indonesia has selected the first chief of its new REDD+
agency: Heru Prasetyo, an administrator and former private sector management…
Japanese companies are failing to
keep illegally logged timber from entering their supply chains, international
human rights and environmental watchdog Global Witness said in a report
released today. The report…
An indigenous peoples’ rights
group has vowed to map millions of hectares of customary land in Indonesia, an
ambitious target it hopes will help protect indigenous forests from
encroachment by…
Click to enlarge In a patch of
rainforest in northern Sumatra, a 28-year-old in jeans and tall rubber boots
snubs out his cigarette and pulls a headlamp over his short…
Innovation in Tropical Forest
Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Erik Meijaard Stunning wildlife encounter along
the Kinabatangan River, Sabah. Although they are called the Bornean pygmy
elephant, there is nothing small…
Indonesian pulp and paper giant
talks forest conservation policy with critics Lafcadio Cortesi, Rainforest Action
Network (RAN); Scott Poynton, The Forest Trust (TFT); Bustar Maitar,
Greenpeace; Rhett Butler, Mongabay; Aida…
Indonesia and the European Union
signed a deal on Monday that aims to curb illegal logging by ending all trade
in illegal wood products between Asia’s largest exporter of timber…
Harrison Ford in Tesso Nilo
National Park, Sumatra. Photo by Zamzami of Mongabay-Indonesia. Harrison Ford
sparked a complaint from Indonesia's top forest official after the actor asked
a series of…
Infinite Earth, the developer
behind Indonesia's first approved REDD+ project, has refuted an NGO's claims
that the project has been only partially approved by the Indonesian government.
In a statement…
The 2013 Zoos and Aquariums:
Committing to Conservation (ZACC) conference runs from July 8th—July 12th in
Des Moines, Iowa, hosted by the Blank Park Zoo. Ahead of the event,
Mongabay.com…
Rimba Raya, the world's largest
REDD+ project, has finally been approved by the Indonesian government and
verified under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), a leading certification
standard for carbon credits.…
The Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC), a body that certifies forest management practices, has revoked all
certificates granted to the Danzer Group, a multinational logging company, over
alleged human rights abuses…
An AVAAZ petition calling upon
Indonesian officials to put a stop to a proposal to open tens of thousands of
hectares of protected rainforest to mining, logging, and oil palm…
A new UN report exposes serious
flaws in Indonesia’s forest governance, serving as a wake up call to policy
makers aiming to conserve forests in the country, which boasts the…
Just over a year ago, the
Indonesian-language version of Mongabay went live (the official launch was May
19. 2012, but the site was live before that). Mongabay.co.id was the first…
After facilitating large-scale
logging and conversion of extensive areas of rainforest habitat, the government
of Sarawak says it will protect a population of up to 200 of the world’s rarest…
The Indonesian Forum for Agrarian
Justice was formed to address agrarian and natural resource conflict. Photo:
Sapariah Saturi. Academics have called on Indonesian President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono to resolve agrarian…
Logging in Borneo. All photos by
Rhett A. Butler Two environmental activist groups blasted the World Bank over
its reported decision to block a probe into its support of industrial-scale…
Sun bear in a cage in Indonesia.
Photo by: Chris R. Shepherd/TRAFFIC Southeast Asia. In the forests of Asia,
bears are being captured. These captives will be sent to bear…
Rainforest in Sabah, Malaysian
Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler 2012 was another year of mixed news for the
world's tropical forests. This is a look at some of the…
The Indonesian government has
approved its first REDD+ project to reduce emissions from deforestation and
peatlands degradation, reports President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's office. The
Rimba Raya project is located in…
Indonesia's top REDD+ official
confirmed there is no plan to open 1.2 million hectares of protected forest in
Sumatra's Aceh Province, calling into question numbers used by
environmentalists in their…
The Indonesian government has
officially extended its moratorium [English translation] on new logging and
plantation concessions in 65 million hectares of forests and peatlands for
another two years. The move,…
Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry
on Friday denied a claim by an NGO that it lost or misappropriated 7.1 trillion
rupiah ($731 million) in 2012, reports the Jakarta Globe. Earlier in…
A Toronto Stock Exchange-listed
mining company has hired an official being investigated for corruption under
its effort to convince the Aceh provincial government to re-zone protected
forest areas for a…
Indonesian lawmakers criticized
the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for its inability to stop deforestation in
Sumatra, accusing the group of trying to destroy Indonesia’s reputation abroad
and hurting…
Rosewood logging in Belize. Photo
by: Will Maheia. In Belize, the uncontrolled and often illegal harvesting of
rosewood has been, and still is, one of the major environmental issues in…
Marbled cat. Photo courtesy of:
Jyrki Hokkanen. In my childhood's biology books from the 50's, the Australian
marsupial tiger Thylacine is classified rare but alive. Today we know that the…
Logged forest in Malaysian
Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The impact of logging on tropical forest
species has likely been exaggerated by statistical problems, according to a new
study…
Deforestation near Rimba Raya in
Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett Butler. The Indonesian government's
announcement at climate talks in Doha that it had approved the country's forest
conservation project under…
Rainforest in Indonesia. Photo by
Rhett A. Butler. Indonesia should extend its two-year moratorium on new concessions
in some 64.8 million hectares of forests and peatlands until its next
presidential…
Deforestation for oil palm plantations
in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Agriculture is the direct driver of roughly
80 percent of tropical deforestation, while logging is the biggest single…
This is an expanded version of an
article, titled A Desperate Effort to Save the Rainforest of Borneo, that
appeared last month on Yale e360. Rainforest in Sabah. All photo…
Rainforest in Indonesia. The
concept of paying tropical countries to reduce destruction of their forests is
succeeding as an idea but suffering from implementation challenges, argues a
new review by…
UPDATE: (June 1, 2012) Radio Free
Sarawak is reporting that Jaban is not in custody in Sarawak. The outlet issued
the following clarification: "there has been some news that [Jaban]…
Logs in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A.
Butler. It's tempting to think of illegal logging as an environmental crisis
but it takes a serious human toll too. Just ask the…
High altitude forest fragments
surrounded by palm oil plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. The funds to start a
palm oil plantation are often garnered by selling timber from the logged-over
forest.…
A video camera trap project
called Eyes on Leuser has captured wonderful footage of a very curious herd of
Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) in the island's Leuser
ecosystem (see…
Illegal logging accounts for
15-30 percent of forestry in the tropics and is worth $30-100 billion
worldwide, alleges a new report published by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and…
Logging truck in Sabah. Photo by
Rhett Butler. Swiss authorities have launched a criminal investigation into
whether banking giant UBS laundered money on behalf of a Malaysian politician
who allegedly…
Forest clearing for plantations
in Riau, Sumatra. Photo taken in May 2012 by Rhett Butler. NGOs demand
investigation into 14 companies in Riau An NGO alliance in Riau urged the…
Bakun dam during construction.
Photo by: Mohamad Shoox. Indigenous people from the Malaysian state of Sarawak
have sent a letter to the German company, Fichtner GmbH & Co. KG,
demanding…
Indicative map May 2012 revision.
Indonesia is making "encouraging" progress on its push to reduce
deforestation by improving governance over its forests and peatlands but still
needs to do more…
Greenpeace protest in Indonesia.
Courtesy of Greenpeace. As fallout from its campaign against Asia Pulp &
Paper grows, Greenpeace's critics have opened a new front on the environmental
group, accusing…
Bakun dam during construction.
Photo by: Mohamad Shoox. The world's third largest mining company, Rio Tinto,
and a local financial and construction firm, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), have
cancelled plans…
Last October indigenous groups,
local people, and domestic NGOs formed the Save Sarawak's Rivers Network to
fight the planned construction of a dozen dams in the Malaysian state on the…
Traveling on the Kerong River
with the Penan. Photo courtesy of Gavin Bate. News about the Penan people is
usually bleak. Once nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Malaysian state of Sarawak…
Bornean orangutan in Central
Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. A comprehensive new study finds that
orangutan populations in Indonesian Borneo are being diminished at
unsustainable rates due to conflict…
Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister
of Sarawak, on Wednesday denied charges that he holds secret Swiss bank
accounts containing wealth attained through close ties with logging companies
and palm oil…
The moratorium on permits for new
concessions in primary rainforests and peatlands will have a limited impact in
reducing deforestation in Indonesia, say environmentalists who have reviewed
the instruction [PDF…
A coalition of environmental NGOs
have called upon Japan to adopt stronger measures to block illicit timber
imports, alleging that Japanese companies are buying illegally logged wood from
Samling Global,…
A new report by an Indonesian
environmental group casts doubt on Asia Pulp & Paper's commitment to
sustainability. In its corporate social responsibility reports and
advertisements, Asia Pulp & Paper…
Andy Tait became the second
Greenpeace campaigner deported from Indonesia in less than a week. Tait, who
was in Indonesia to visit areas of forest and peatland allegedly cleared in…
Indigenous tribes in Borneo
suffered a stinging defeat Thursday after Sarawak's highest court ruled against
them in 12-year-long legal battle. Tribal groups had challenged the Malaysian
state government for seizing…
Douglas cutting tree in Papua New
Guinea. Photo by: David Fedele. In one scene a young man, perhaps not long ago
a boy, named Douglas stands shirtless and in shorts…
Fuji Xerox Australia have severed
ties with Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL), an paper products giant
accused of illegally clearing rainforests in Sumatra for pulp and paper
production, reports Nine…
No pictures please: Illegal
logger harvesting timber. On a recent trip to Borneo, Rhett Butler caught
photographic evidence of illegal logging in Gunung Palung National Park. Photos
by Rhett A.…
Illegal forest conversion by
mining and plantation companies in Indonesian Borneo has cost the state $36
billion according to a Forest Ministry official. Speaking to AFP, Forestry
Ministry information center…
The Sarawak government mocked the
plight of its rainforest people in a press release issued earlier this month,
says a rights' group. The release says forest people are poised to…
Indonesian President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono has selected Central Kalimantan as the pilot province for the
country's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)
program, according to the President's office…
More species are threatened with
extinction in Indonesia than any other country on Earth. If we are to save
them, it will take more protected areas, radical shifts in deforestation,…
Asia Pulp & Paper hires its
PR firm to do a hit job on Greenpeace but comes up short. A new audit that
seems to exonerate Asia Pulp & Paper…
Illegal logging on the edge of
Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. This
timber is being used to construct structures to attract swiftlets for…
Erik Meijaard is forest director
for People and Nature Consulting International in Bali. This editorial
originally appeared December 26, 2010 in the Jakarta Globe. It has been posted
here with…
A shorter version of this article
appears on Yale e360 as Indonesia’s Corruption Legacy Clouds a Forest
Protection Plan. The version that appears below was last revised on October
31,…
This interview is an excerpt from
The WildLife with Laurel Neme, a program that explores the mysteries of the
animal world through interviews with scientists and other wildlife
investigators. "The…
Industrial interests are
threatening to undermine Norway's billion dollar partnership with Indonesia,
potentially turning the forest conservation deal into a scheme that subsidizes
conversion of rainforests and peatlands for oil…
Rehabilitation is a powerful word
these days. Fashionable, too. In wildlife conservation, rehabilitation can
serve functions ranging from augmenting threatened animal populations to
desperate attempts to save species from permanent…
Arief Rubianto will be speaking
at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 3rd,
2010. Arief Rubianto, the head of an anti-poaching squad on the Indonesian
island…
Indonesia's greenhouse gas
emissions reached 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2005, making it the
world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but offering opportunities
to substantially reduce emissions…
Norway's Climate and Forests
Initiative, which has set aside billions of dollars for efforts to reduce
deforestation, should work with the country's Ministry of Finance to divest the
Government Pension…
Orangutan encounter rates have
fallen six-fold in Borneo over the past 150 years, report researchers writing
in the journal PLoS One. Erik Meijaard, an ecologist with People and Nature
Consulting…
Greenpeace finds striking success
in targeting big business. Tropical deforestation claimed roughly 13 million
hectares of forest per year during the first half of this decade, about the
same rate…
Oil palm plantation with the
rainforest of Gunung Leuser National Park in the background. Photo by: Rhett A.
Butler, 2009. With a one billion dollar fund from Norway, Indonesia is…
Radical, controversial,
ahead-of-his-time, brilliant, or extremist: call Dr. Glen Barry, the head of
Ecological Internet, what you will, but there is no question that his
environmental advocacy group has achieved…
Indonesia is preparing to
establish a trust fund to reduce deforestation, reports the Jakarta Globe. The
National Forest Trust Fund, which will be raised by the Ministry of Forestry from…
A local organization in Papua New
Guinea, known as Asples Madang, is fighting against one of the region's biggest
industrial loggers, Rimbunan Hijau (RH) chaired by billionaire Tiong Hiew
King.…
A court in the Malaysian state of
Sarawak has issued an injunction to block the continued destruction of the Iban
village of Sungai Sekabai, reports the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF),…
Selectively logged forests and
timber plantations can serve as habitat for orangutans, suggesting that
populations of the endangered ape may be more resilient than previously
believed, reports research published in…
Norway has agreed to transfer an
initial $30 million to Indonesia under its $1 billion REDD+ (reducing emissions
from deforestation and forest degradation) partnership with the Southeast Asian
country. The…
With 18,000 islands spanning two
major bigeographic realms (and a curious outlier in Sulawesi) across an area of
nearly 2 million square kilometers, Indonesia is one of the world's most…
Scientists convening in Bali
expressed a range of concerns over a proposed mechanism for mitigating climate
change through forest conservation, but some remained hopeful the idea could
deliver long-term protection…
An interview with Agus Purnomo
and Yani Saloh, Special Assistants to the President of the Republic of
Indonesia for Climate Change. Late last year Indonesia made global headlines
with a…
Spoiler Alert: artikel ini
mengungkapkan akhir dari cerita di film Avatar. Dalam film terbaru James
Cameron Avatar sebuah suku alien di planet yang jauh melawan untuk
menyelamatkan rumah hutan mereka…
Sometime around 2050 researchers
estimate that the global population will level-out at nine billion people,
adding over two billion more people to the planet. Since, one billion of the
world's…
BY 23 JANUARY 2010
Danum river in Sabah, Malaysia.
Photo by Rhett A. Butler 2008. Rights groups have condemned the destruction of
more than two dozen homes in the indigenous Iban community of Sungai…
REDD will fail if needs of forest
communities aren't addressed REDD will fail if needs of forest communities
aren't addressed mongabay.com December 7, 2007 New report argues that unless
REDD…
Indonesia is 3rd largest
greenhouse gas producer due to deforestation Indonesia is 3rd largest
greenhouse gas producer due to deforestation mongabay.com March 26, 2007
Indonesia trails only the United States…
Forest fires result from
government failure in Indonesia Forest fires result from government failure in
Indonesia mongabay.com editorial October 15, 2006 Indonesia is burning again.
Smoke from fires set for…
Saving Orangutans in Borneo
Orangutan in Borneo, photo by Rhett Butler Saving Orangutans in Borneo Rhett
Butler, mongabay.com May 24, 2006 The air is warm and heavy with the morning…
Developing countries: pay us for
rainforest conservation Developing countries: pay us to save rainforests Rhett
A. Butler, mongabay.com November 27, 2005 [2006 update] At this week's United
Nations summit on…
Rising demand for timber and
agricultural products could work against a proposed initiative to reduce
emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), warns a new report from
the Environmental Investigation Agency…
Growing numbers of "palm oil
orphans" in rehab centers present a challenge to conservationists. NOTE: A
shorter version of this article was published on Yale e360 in June. A baby…
Some suggest Greenpeace has
overstated its claims. Greenpeace criticized Indonesia's plan to reduce
deforestation through a market-based emissions mechanism known as REDD
(Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), reports AFP.…
Rainforest destruction continues
apace in tropical Asia Rainforest destruction continues apace in tropical Asia
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com December 9, 2007 Tropical forests in Asia have
been rapidly and extensively…
Indonesia to be recognized in
Guinness Book of World Records for deforestation rate Indonesia to be
recognized in Guinness Book of World Records for deforestation rate
mongabay.com May 4, 2007…
Tropical timber has earned a bad
reputation. When we think of timber from lush, tropical forests, it conjures up
images of valuable old-growth trees pillaged by logging companies and illegal…
Deforestation in Borneo
Deforestation in Borneo Kalimantan at the Crossroads: Dipterocarp Forests and
the Future of Indonesian Borneo Tina Butler, mongabay.com April 13, 2005 2007
UPDATE EDITOR'S NOTE: Borneo, the…
