JAKARTA — Two major palm oil companies recently exited a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection, bringing the total number of firms quitting the framework since 2000 to…
JAKARTA — The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, two of the world’s largest palm oil producers, have intensified their criticisms against European Union trade policies, which they deem to be…
Tropical forests play a key role in our efforts to stabilize the global climate. As a readymade means of ameliorating our continued greenhouse gas emissions, tree-clad tropical landscapes provide us…
Viewed from above, tropical rainforests look like a blanket of trees, branches extending skyward and leaves fanning out in all directions. But in addition to the trees, up to 40%…
Orangutans, like most of the world’s great apes, are struggling. Their numbers continue to drop as their habitat disappears, or they’re killed by humans for food, out of fear or…
Over the span of 10 years, a team of researchers have been following 102 Asian elephants in Malaysia, collecting more than 600,000 GPS fixes in the process. When they analyzed…
A method to produce new living cells from a dead Sumatran rhinoceros is being developed by wildlife scientists in Germany in an effort to prevent the extinction of the critically…
Diseases affecting domestic animals, such as canine distemper, are increasingly infecting tropical wildlife, including wild felids, presenting a threat to biodiversity; so far solutions are few and funding is scarce.
In a surprise victory for Indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo, the Sarawak state government has revoked a contested palm oil concession in the Mulu region. This comes after protests against…
After two years tracking the sights, sounds and cultural significance of the forests that form their ancestral homeland, Indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo have published a 90-page atlas of the…
Malaysian timber giant Samling has removed logging equipment from a long-disputed area in Sarawak state’s Upper Baram Forest Area, in what the Penan Indigenous community is calling a win for…
Spanning more than 1,600 square kilometers (620 square miles), the Ulu Muda rainforest is one of the last large, continuous tracts of forest in the Malay Peninsula, and provides vital…
JAKARTA — Habitat for up to a quarter of the known population of Bornean orangutans will disappear across the island of Borneo under predicted patterns of deforestation over the next…
Having spent 27 years as a wild cat scientist, I have been fortunate to run my fingers through the coarse fur of a 170 kg tiger while wrapping a GPS…
Rodents gnawing on oil palm crops can be a costly business. One study estimated that they can reduce yields by as much as 10%. Among the means used to tackle…
When plant systematist Elliot Gardner first began collecting samples of a fruit-bearing tree in Malaysian Borneo, he thought he was looking at just one species. Western taxonomists had long considered…
Antibody tests conducted on domestic cats and wild cats in Malaysian Borneo indicate that oil palm plantations may act as transmission sites for viruses, according to a new study. The…
The first time you see a proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), you might be hit with a mix of fascination, joy and perhaps some confusion: muscular limbs attached to a pot-bellied…
Malaysia is the second-largest palm oil producer in the world, behind only Indonesia. In 2020 alone, Malaysia was responsible for more than a quarter of global palm oil production. But…
An international team of scientists studying the distribution and threats facing some of South and Southeast Asia’s most economically important tree species has confirmed that current environmental protections fail to…
When you look at a tropical rainforest, the landscape is usually dominated by shades of green and brown. But every now and then, the trees erupt into flower all at…
Activists and an opposition lawmaker in the Malaysian state of Pahang have demanded government accountability after reports that just 5% of forest reserves cleared to make way for plantations have…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) The Sundaland bioregion spans Borneo, Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula and a myriad of smaller surrounding islands. Sundaland hosts one of the largest tracts of primary…
Over the past 20 years, more than $1 billion has been spent on orangutan conservation. Yet all three species of orangutan are currently classified as critically endangered and continue to…
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…
Organizations in the Malaysian state of Sabah have filed a complaint with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples about a once-secretive deal aimed at locking up…
On the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos are all that’s left of this critically endangered species. Tremendous conservation efforts are striving to keep these…
An agreement for the rights to the natural capital covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) in Malaysian Borneo for the next 100 years “in its present form is legally…
The article has been significantly amended in light of challenges to both the research itself and Mongabay's coverage of the journal article. If you get yourself a map of Peninsular…
The concept of "biocultural diversity" has gained wider prominence in recent decades as academics, institutions, and practitioners have expanded cross-disciplinary work at the intersection of human culture and biological diversity.…
