The Mount Tambora caldera. The area was declared a national park last month. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Indonesian researchers believe they have identified six new animal species in the newly declared…
'Copy-paste' not good enough for civil society groups calling for the policy to be strengthened A Greenpeace activist dons a mask of Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo in a smoldering…
A logging road transects Peruvian rainforest (this is not an image of one of the newly detected roads). Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Roads spread out like multi-fingered tendrils, eating…
A fishing boat off the coast of Java. Photo: Rhett A. Butler The Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK) has organized dozens of non-bank financial institutions to support the country's maritime…
Inside Central American rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Thanks to the world’s voracious appetite for crops like coffee, palm oil, rice, rubber, soy and tea, large-scale agriculture is one…
A Sumatran elephant of the sort that lives in the Leuser Ecosystem. Photo: Rhett A. Butler A new report provides evidence that a supplier of palm oil giants Wilmar and…
Twenty-three yellow-crested cockatoos and a green parrot were found crammed into plastic water bottles aboard a ship in Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port last week. Photo: Petrus Riski Days after police…
A Madagascar nightjar (Caprimulgus madagascariensis), which shares a genus with the endangered Itombwe nightjar (Caprimulgus prigoginei). Photo by Francesco Veronesi Many of the world's endangered animals live in only one…
Cashew nuts grow in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: P.J. Stephenson. Forests could help alleviate global hunger, according to a new report released Wednesday…
Reaching 1,450 meters (4,750 feet) above the surrounding sea, Cleopatra's Needle is one of Palawan's tallest mountain peaks. Photo by Jonah van Beijnen. Palawan, an island-province of the Philippines near…
A fishing boat off the coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah. Photo by: Rhett Butler. Consumers in the developed world want sustainably sourced seafood and increasingly retailers like Walmart…
Forest cleared for oil palm in West Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has prohibited Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), one of its most prominent…
Due to its widening impact on tropical forests yet high profit margins, palm oil is one of the most polarizing crops in the tropics. Scientists and environmentalists warn of the…
Fish being loaded into a truck for processing and export in Batu Putih, North Sulawesi. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. In late December, Indonesian officials seized a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-manned vessel…
Twenty-three yellow-crested cockatoos and a green parrot were found crammed into plastic water bottles aboard a ship in Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port yesterday. Photo: Petrus Riski Police at a major…
On May 1, five illegal foreign fishing vessels from Thailand were apprehended by the Indonesian Navy. Photo: Aseanty Pahlevi A convoy of blue Thai fishing boats slowly entered the mouth…
There's a saying in the Indonesian palm oil industry: Sumatra is yesterday, Kalimantan is today, and Papua is tomorrow. Tomorrow might well have arrived. A new report sheds light on…
A large male Sumatran orangutan is released, some 50 kilometers from where he was rescued in the Leuser Ecosystem. Photo: Paul Hilton for OIC. Conservationists rescued another orangutan stranded in…
A sustainable-business forum in Indonesia's Riau province urged the government to support companies' zero-deforestation commitments, which remain hampered by policies that prevent firms from preserving forests in their concessions. Under…
A baby pangolin was born in the wake of a massive bust in North Sumatra. Photo: Ayat S. Karokaro Following a major seizure of illegal wildlife goods in North Sumatra,…
Clearing of Brazilian Amazon rainforest for soy. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. A study on the impact of forest loss on biodiversity, recently published in the journal Conservation Biology, shows…
The recently completed Santo Antonio hydroelectric dam on the Madeira River attempts to control record floodwater in February, 2014. Photo: Greenpeace. Every year, giant catfish migrate from low-lying estuaries near…
An oil palm estate in North Sumatra. Photo: Rhett A. Butler Executives from palm oil giants Wilmar, Cargill and Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) appeared at a green investment summit in Jakarta…
The blue-bearded helmetcrest (Oxypogon cyanolaemus) is a spectacular hummingbird. It is aptly named for the blue streak of feathers on its chin and a pointed crest on its head resembling…
Pemuteran Bay, the site of a community-based ocean management program in North Bali. Photo: Aji Wihardandi The Indonesian government is preparing a spatial plan for its marine territory, the beginning…
Forest inside a Dominican Republic national park burned to clear land for crops. Photo by Miguel Landestoy. One makes whimsical clicking and whistling noises, while the other communicates in quiet,…
A signpost showing the U.N. road (Crescent) that passes through the forest. Photo credit: Protus Onyango. The founder of Kenya's GreenBelt Movement, Wangari Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize in…
A wind farm on the Indonesian island of Sumba. Photo: Antara The Indonesian government plans to expand the list of incentives for "green investment," cabinet members said at a summit…
Small-scale forest clearing in Mount Leuser National Park. Photo: Rhett A. Butler The Indonesian government will take another stab at relocating thousands of squatters from Mount Leuser National Park, most…
A Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) at Sepilok Rehabilitation Center in Sabah, Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The three nations that share Borneo could save themselves $43 billion by more…
