AGUÁN VALLEY, Honduras — In the years after 2018, during periods when the threats subsided and the paramilitary gunmen didn’t show up, nights in the village of Panamá were peaceful.…
Orangutans have long captured the human imagination, their expressive eyes and human-like behaviors drawing parallels with our own species. Yet few individuals have had the opportunity to dive as deeply…
JAKARTA — A study by an Indonesian NGO challenges government claims that oil palm cultivation is a driver of economic welfare and development, showing that the environmental and social damage…
JAKARTA — Consumers in the U.S. might be unknowingly exposed to palm oil products that come from deforestation, despite major consumer goods producers there adopting zero-deforestation pledges. That’s because these…
LUBOK PUSAKA, Indonesia — Jaharuddin, 50, sits deep in thought in his living room in Lubok Pusaka village, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, smoking a cigarette and staring out the door.…
JAKARTA — Indonesian conservationist Farwiza Farhan says she couldn’t contain her tears when she learned that the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation had selected her as a recipient of its Emergent…
A crucial new European law to save global forests is under attack, by the Biden Administration – precisely at the time Biden seeks to burnish his environmental credentials. The regulation…
On May 24, 2024, clashes broke out between members of a local community and security guards at an oil palm plantation in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo…
GORONTALO, Indonesia — A palm oil industry body and a state-owned company are proposing a vast new palm oil plan encompassing around 1 million hectares (nearly 2.5 million acres) of…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is working on improving and synchronizing its forest and supply chain data to comply with increasingly strict sustainability standards and requirements in markets where it…
CENTRAL ACEH, Indonesia — Mak Besan dropped a clutch of cayenne peppers picked from a neighbor’s land in Karang Ampar village into a white canvas bag, her head protected from…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has ordered a palm oil company to pay 1 billion rupiah ($61,000) in fines for shortchanging villagers by not sufficiently paying them according to a…
JAKARTA — Civil society organizations in Indonesia are getting a boost to ensure their participation in the country’s clean energy transition and land stewardship, amid an increasingly hostile climate for…
The EU’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR) was hailed as a watershed in the fight to protect the world’s forests when it came into force in 2023. The world’s first…
JAKARTA — NGOs working with Indonesian smallholder farmers have developed a set of guidelines aimed at helping oil palm farmers prove that their products are deforestation-free, allowing them a foothold…
JAKARTA — Allegations of illegal activity and land-grabbing against Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil company continue to mount as a new report reveals the firm’s violations appear to be more extensive…
In 2023, Socfin hired a consultancy to investigate longstanding allegations of human rights violations and environmental damage raised by communities living around the Belgian transnational company’s oil palm and rubber…
TEBO, Indonesia — Electrified fences set up around farms are an emerging threat to the critically endangered Sumatran elephant, conservationists told Mongabay Indonesia following a series of deaths this year…
JAKARTA — A campaign calling for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ customary forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has gone viral, with the campaign’s poster shared nearly 3 million…
LANGKAT, Indonesia — Ilham was sitting outside on his terrace in the village of Kuala Langkat on April 18 when a scrum of men in plainclothes arrived at his home…
JAKARTA — A dispute simmering for years has erupted into conflict between villagers and a palm oil company on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi over the latter’s failure to abide…
Mongabay’s award-winning investigation that revealed water contamination from palm oil plantations in Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon inspired an art installation at UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day Conference in Santiago; the artwork was also exhibited at Chile’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
JAKARTA — Briantama Asmara first visited the village of Kais in Indonesian Papua, on the island of New Guinea, in 2017 as an university researcher. The village lies two time…
JAKARTA — Funding from the New Zealand government is helping Indigenous farmers in Indonesian Borneo improve their livelihoods while protecting their ancestral forests. The funding, channeled through the Farmers For…
JAKARTA — The largest case of deforestation for industrial palm oil in Indonesia is happening within a concession on a tiny island off the coast of southern Borneo, according to…
If you’re in the United States, your meal might come with a side of deforestation. The US imported palm oil, cattle products, soybeans, cocoa, rubber, coffee and corn linked to…
JAKARTA — Fear among Indonesia’s ruling class of losing control of natural resources to Indigenous people is why the country’s parliament continues to delay passing a long-awaited bill on Indigenous…
We are now in a make-or break-moment for the landmark law to halt imported global deforestation into the European Union. Global forest defenders watch with bated breath as in the…
BELITUNG ISLAND, Indonesia — Nasidi paddled gently past a row of the eponymous rasau trees that line the riverbanks here in Tebet Rasau village, where a decade ago people would…
The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism…
JAKARTA — 2023 saw the worst fire season in Indonesia since 2019, with an area the size of Qatar going up in flames, according to official government data. A total…
JAKARTA — The tropics continue to lose primary forest at an alarming rate, with an area of tree cover half the size of Panama disappearing in 2023, new data from…
