Asia News

On 27 March 2021, the natural sounds of the teak and bamboo forests of eastern Myanmar — calling birds, croaking frogs and barking deer — were drowned out by a…

KIDAY, Philippines — Gloomy skies don’t dampen the spirit of Virginia Nazareno as she happily waters organic vegetables on an April morning in Kiday, a sitio or hamlet on the…

One of Bangladesh’s two Ramsar sites, wetlands of international importance, is slowly losing some of the waterbirds that seek respite at this key migratory pit stop, a new study says.…

Indonesia’s biofuel program was supposed to be a boon for small farmers. But although the country’s biodiesel production has skyrocketed, many farmers complain that the program hasn’t benefited them. Farmers…

In 2019, the last Sumatran rhino in Malaysia died. Her name was Iman and ever since her capture in 2014, she had been under the care of the Bornean Rhino…

KATHMANDU — Until a few months ago, residents of Geruwa, a rural municipality in western Nepal, used to rush to their homes before dusk and shut themselves indoors. That was…

JAKARTA —  A decade of protection and natural regeneration of tropical forests has helped bird populations increase in the southern lowlands of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, but continued wild trapping by…

Smoke from the catastrophic 2019-20 Australian bushfires may have tipped the planet into a La Niña climate phenomenon lasting almost three years, according to new research published May 10 in…

SHAMSHY, Kyrgyzstan — “I was only 9 when I first saw a snow leopard with my father. He was a ranger bringing injured animals found in the mountains to the…

The Philippines, a hotspot of marine biodiversity, has emerged as the global epicenter of an illicit trade in giant clams that threatens the survival of these massive sea creatures. According…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has made strides in developing its plantation industry, catapulting the country into the world’s largest producer of palm oil. Its sprawling plantations produce more than half of…

On April 4, a large fire gutted thousands of shops at a popular clothing market named Banga Bazar in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Firefighters complained of water scarcity as a…

Sometimes, our current mass extinction crisis can be represented by the loss of a single individual. On April 21, locals spotted a 93-kilogram (205-pound) body in the waters of Dong…

DARAITAN, Philippines — Members of the Indigenous Dumagat-Remontado, young and old alike, stood out against the greenery in their traditional red loincloth and tapis. On a scorching Good Friday morning,…

JAKARTA — As the European Union is set to adopt a landmark regulation that prohibits companies from trading commodities from deforested areas and illegal sources, the proposed law continues to…

In 2005, fishers in northern Thailand captured a Mekong giant catfish of gargantuan proportions. Tipping the scales at 293 kilograms (646 pounds), the critically endangered Pangasianodon gigas raised a question…

KATHMANDU — As the crowing of a rooster signals the break of dawn in Taplejung in eastern Nepal, two men grab their slingshots and head out to work. They know…

JAMBI, Indonesia — The lunchtime rush is well underway as customers file into a lively Padang-style restaurant here in the city of Jambi on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. A clutch of…

 COLOMBO — On average one elephant has died each day in Sri Lanka in the first three months of this year, with nearly half of those deaths due to human…

PRIETO DIAZ, Philippines — Working quietly before a bucket of rabbitfish, known locally as danggit, two women precisely cut open each fish with square knives, gutting and deboning before repeating…

JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…

JAKARTA — Illegal oil palm plantations spanning an area one and a half times the size of London have been amnestied under an Indonesian government program that critics say incentivizes…

Across the Indonesian island of Java, suitable habitat for Javan leopards shrunk by more than 1,300 square kilometers, or 500 square miles, between 2000 and 2020. That’s according to a…

Activists from Papua New Guinea, where a controversial gold mine is inching toward reopening, have joined a campaign of global protests ahead of the annual general meeting of Canada-based Barrick…

JAKARTA — The combination of weak antigraft policies, lack of transparency, revolving-door politics, and the prevalence of politically exposed persons within companies makes Indonesia’s palm oil industry highly prone to…

COLOMBO — The Sri Lankan government is filing a lawsuit in Singapore for compensation nearly two years since the worst maritime disaster in the country’s history. But activists say it…

COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s animal-human conflicts are on the rise with increasing crop raids, but a recent request from a Chinese company requesting 100,00 toque macaques from Sri Lanka has…

KORK THLORK, Cambodia — Vorn Keo, perched on the edge of a green wooden boat, navigates through the flooded forest of Tonle Sap Lake and across the boundary into a…

Bangladesh has been swept up in the massive heat wave scorching large parts of Asia, with temperatures among the highest in six decades. The country’s capital, Dhaka, saw the temperature…

PHNOM PENH — On the morning of April 26, a handful of activists took to the streets of the Cambodian capital to commemorate the 11th anniversary of environmentalist Chut Wutty’s…