This article was co-published with The Gecko Project and New Mandala. “Please tell me how I can make companies obey the law,” the official said. He was exasperated by the…
JAKARTA — Deforestation associated with oil palm cultivation has declined in recent years in Indonesia, but in a biodiversity haven at the northern tip of Sumatra, the forest is being…
In Sumatra, villagers occupied an oil palm plantation and set tires on fire; in the Bangka-Belitung Islands, they filled the local parliament building demanding action; in Borneo, paramilitary police were…
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…
MEDAN, Indonesia — An investigation into the violent death of an orangutan in northern Sumatra in January has shone a light on the persistent problem of human-wildlife conflict and illegal…
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has sentenced palm oil billionaire Surya Darmadi to 15 years in prison for his role in the biggest corruption case in the country’s history.…
When the palm oil industry began growing rapidly in Indonesia in the 1980s, the government developed a scheme aimed at ensuring communities would benefit. To gain subsidized funding, companies routinely…
There was hope, back in 2014, that the world would be able to halve deforestation rates within the following five years. The New York Declaration of Forests, a list of…
A new report released by the Liberian and Dutch affiliates of Friends of the Earth accuses a palm oil producer operating in a remote part of Liberia of mistreating workers…
Think of a tropical rainforest being cleared for an oil palm plantation, and the first animal that comes to mind is probably an orangutan. But there’s another tree-dwelling species, not…
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…
EAST TANJUNG JABUNG, Indonesia — Ambo Angke trudged through the cemetery knowing he had been right to worry. A high tide surge had inundated the resting place here on the…
JAKARTA — Indonesia must develop a new feedstock alternative to palm oil as the government intensifies an ambitious biofuel program meant to move away from diesel, observers say. From February…
JAKARTA — Anticorruption activists in Indonesia have criticized as too lenient the sentences handed down by an Indonesian court against officials at the center of a cooking oil shortage that…
JAKARTA — New palm oil regulations being adopted by the European Union and the U.K. could put even more pressure on independent small farmers in Indonesia who are already struggling…
Home to the world's third-largest expanse of tropical forest, the world's fourth-biggest population, and frequently ranked among the world's top 10 greenhouse gas emitters, Indonesia is a country where what…
There were some hopeful developments for tropical rainforest conservation in 2022, including declines in the deforestation rate in Indonesia and the Brazilian Amazon, new high-level policy commitments supporting forest protection,…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — “The right of those who used to live here to access the cemetery is in the [Brazilian] Constitution. … The cemetery is a sacred place,” sociologist…
PEKANBARU, Indonesia — Intensive efforts in recent years to prevent fires in Indonesia’s Riau province, the country’s perennial epicenter of forest and land fires, will be put to the test…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — In November 2021, I went to Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, to investigate claims of land grabbing in traditional territories, leveled against one of Brazil's…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — With trembling hands, Raimundo Serrão lights candles for his grandmother at the Livramento Cemetery's cross on the Day of the Dead because he couldn't find her…
JAKARTA — The European Union has finalized a law that will ban the trade of commodities associated with deforestation and forest degradation. On Dec. 6, the European Council, Parliament and Commission struck…
Josefa Mería has lived in the Peruvian city of Moyobamba, where the Andes meet the Amazon rainforest, for more than 30 years. Even in this humid tropical climate, she remembers…
JAKARTA — Commitments by palm oil producers in Southeast Asia not to deforest, clear peatlands, or use exploitative practices have helped the industry significantly reduce tropical forest loss. But many…
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…
JAKARTA — “Remarkably lax” and “laissez-faire” law enforcement efforts by conservation authorities in Indonesia have allowed the killing, capture and trade of scores of orangutans to persist, according to a…
Palm oil production is leaving a deep mark on the rivers and forests of Latin America. Between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 palm oil…
WEST PASAMAN, Indonesia — Eren says he can’t forget the day in 2000 when he fled from the plantation security guards. He had joined fellow residents of Nagari Aia Gadang…
Electric wire fences set up to keep marauding elephants out of farms and villages in Indonesia’s Aceh province worked well — at least at first. When the elephants realized the…
JAKARTA — Sustainability commitments and greater scrutiny of supply chains is helping bring down deforestation rates associated with palm oil in Indonesia, a new analysis suggests. The country is the…
