Sangihe lies between Indonesia's Sulawesi island and the Philippines' Mindanao island in the Celebes sea. Image: Google Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has so far focused…
by 25 June 2015
A vendor checks his phone at the Jatinegara bird market in East Jakarta. Photo: Harry Pearl The Indonesian shop owner turns and motions to the back of the grubby, concrete-floor…
A coal barge passes the Masjid Islamic Center in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. Photo: David Fogarty A few months before BHP Billiton’s Haju mine is set to begin operations in Indonesia’s…
Publicly-traded firm suspends new business with company planning to clear peatlands in Sarawak Palm oil growers who plan to convert peatlands and rainforests for new plantations have been warned: one…
A body of water in Aru, a cluster of about 90 islands in eastern Indonesia. Photo: FWI-AMAN The Indonesian agriculture minister's recent comments that the Aru archipelago in the country's…
Less than three weeks after APRIL unveiled a sustainability policy that is supposed to protect natural forests, an environmental group is alleging that one of the Indonesian forestry giant's subsidiaries…
An open-pit coal mine in Indonesia's Bengkulu province. Photo: Taufik Wijaya The governor of Indonesia's Bengkulu province reiterated his commitment to bringing mining in the province under control, as environmentalists…
June 23 update BLD Plantation Bhd, a Malaysian palm oil company, plans to clear some 14,000 hectares of peatlands in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, potentially putting it in…
The high seas are often called the Wild West of the ocean. These vast oceanic tracts begin 200 miles from shore and fall under no nation's jurisdiction. And while there…
Global Forest Watch image showing the region in West Papua where the clearing took place Agribusiness giants Cargill and Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) are pledging to investigate a palm oil supplier…
A fisherman spears an octopus in southwestern Madagascar. Photo copyright: Garth Cripps / Blue Ventures 2015. For communities that depend on fishing for their livelihoods, fishing bans as a way…
The Te Apiti wind farm in New Zealand was granted tradeable carbon offset credits when it was built in 2003/2004. Wind energy projects were popular in voluntary carbon markets in…
A rainforest in Borneo. Photo credit: Rhett Butler. Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have produced a draft agreement on the technical provisions of a plan to reduce…
Orangutan orphaned after its mother was killed in an oil palm plantation in Sumatra. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Shoppers may be willing to pay a 15 to 56 percent…
by 15 June 2015
As the rush for land in Southeast Asia continues at breakneck speed, often bringing with it social and environmental destruction, a new study by a major environmental research group explores…
Rainforest in Indonesia's Riau province. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Weak spatial planning and law enforcement, land tenure problems and a lack of transparency in licensing are some of the issues…
Protesters donned elephant costumes last month for a demonstration outside the Mandarin Oriental's London branch after the launch of the She's Not a Fan campaign targeting the luxury hotel chain's…
A Mexican gray wolf waits in a pen before being released to the wild. Photo credit: Arizona Game and Fish Department. Wolves use their noses to track their quarry by…
A spillway at Brazil's Jirau Dam. More than 400 hydroelectric dams are currently proposed, under construction, or have already been built across Amazonia. Photo credit: Philip Fearnside. Plans to build…
A logged-out forest in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province. Photo: Rhett A. Butler The reputation of oil palm business group Sawit Sumbermas Sarana (SSS), a holding of one of Indonesia's richest…
A view of the 5,000-acre Bábaco ranch, the purchase of which was supported by the Quick Response Biodiversity Fund to expand the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, Mexico. Photo by…
An oil palm plantation near Tangkahan village in Indonesia's North Sumatra province. Photo: Quino Alonso The landscape during the five-hour ride from Medan, the capital of Indonesia's North Sumatra province,…
A white rhinoceros rests in Kruger National Park, South Africa, the epicenter of a spate of rhino poaching. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. Two adult rhinos and a calf lie…
A New Zealand dolphin, one of whose two subspecies, the Maui's dolphin, is critically endangered with a quickly diminishing population. Photo credit: Steve Dawson/NABU International Foundation for Nature. Maui's dolphins…
Protesters demonstrate in front of Bolloré’s headquarters near Paris calling on the multinational conglomerate to return land, or compensate farmers, over disputed concessions for plantations in Cambodia and three African…
Mukhtar used to be an illegal logger. Now he coordinates community forest rangers in Aceh. Photo: Rizal Purba In his former life, Mukhtar made a living felling trees illegally. He…
This article is the second in a two-part series on mangrove conservation. Read the first part here. Red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) in Panama. Photo by Rhett Butler. In December 2014,…
This article is the first in a two-part series on mangrove conservation. Read the second part here. Mangrove forest in Cuero-Salado, Honduras. Photo by Rhett Butler. In a press conference…
Fishing gear stands ready next to the day's catch on the shore of Lake Victoria. Photo credit: Isaiah Esipisu. Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh water body and the world's second…
Environment and Forestry Ministry officials line up at the inauguration ceremony for new director-generals last week. From left, ministry Secretary-General Bambang Hendroyono, Environmental and Forestry Spatial Planning Director-General San Afri…