BANJARMASIN, Indonesia — In October 2023 in the Indigenous Dayak village of Bangkal, Indonesian police fired on farmers demonstrating against PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada (HMBP), a palm oil plantation…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian government plan to clear forests spanning an area twice the size of South Korea for food and biofuel crops has sparked fears of massive greenhouse gas…
JAKARTA — In a controversial speech, Indonesia’s new president argued oil palm plantations are like forests, calling for their expansion by stating, ‘oil palms are trees … they’ve got leaves.’”…
French dairy giant Danone has been around for more than a century and operates across more than 55 countries, producing everything from yogurt and milk to protein drinks and baby…
Policies designed to occupy and populate the Peruvian Amazon began about seventy years ago with the construction of a trunk highway connecting Pucallpa on the Ucayali River with Lima. Named…
When the Indonesian government established Tesso Nilo National Park in 2004 on a former logging concession, little could it have known that the legacy of logging and deforestation would continue…
LANGKAT, Indonesia — Syafi’i has spent three decades picking up the crabs scurrying along the coast here in Langkat district on Sumatra Island’s northeastern coast, a reliable trade that provided…
Parties members of the European People’s Party (EPP), a large center-right political party, received political donations from influential companies linked to illegal deforestation and which are likely to benefit from…
In Seruyan, a regency in Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, independent smallholders are trialing regenerative agriculture strategies in their oil palm farms in an effort to shift away from environmentally degrading…
JAKARTA — The world’s top certification body for ethical palm oil is set to vote on a major new standard aimed at balancing conservation goals with the practicalities of the…
Gustina Salim Rambe appeared quietly distraught as a court on Indonesia’s main western island of Sumatra sentenced her to more than five months in prison for speaking out against the…
Joan Carling has made it her life’s mission to fight for the rights of her fellow Indigenous peoples. She has led anti-mining campaigns in the Philippines and faced death threats.…
JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have launched an investigation into the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, as there are indications of corruption related to the palm oil industry. The attorney general’s…
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…
