JAMBI, Indonesia — The lunchtime rush is well underway as customers file into a lively Padang-style restaurant here in the city of Jambi on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. A clutch of…
PRIETO DIAZ, Philippines — Working quietly before a bucket of rabbitfish, known locally as danggit, two women precisely cut open each fish with square knives, gutting and deboning before repeating…
JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…
JAKARTA — Illegal oil palm plantations spanning an area one and a half times the size of London have been amnestied under an Indonesian government program that critics say incentivizes…
Across the Indonesian island of Java, suitable habitat for Javan leopards shrunk by more than 1,300 square kilometers, or 500 square miles, between 2000 and 2020. That’s according to a…
Activists from Papua New Guinea, where a controversial gold mine is inching toward reopening, have joined a campaign of global protests ahead of the annual general meeting of Canada-based Barrick…
JAKARTA — The combination of weak antigraft policies, lack of transparency, revolving-door politics, and the prevalence of politically exposed persons within companies makes Indonesia’s palm oil industry highly prone to…
KORK THLORK, Cambodia — Vorn Keo, perched on the edge of a green wooden boat, navigates through the flooded forest of Tonle Sap Lake and across the boundary into a…
PHNOM PENH — On the morning of April 26, a handful of activists took to the streets of the Cambodian capital to commemorate the 11th anniversary of environmentalist Chut Wutty’s…
JAKARTA — A group of researchers and citizen-scientists have described a new “semi-slug” species from the lowland rainforests of northern Borneo. The so-called snug, a snail whose external shell is…
JAKARTA — When Indonesia embarked on its Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s, it cleared vast swaths of forest for farmland, mostly in the peatlands of Borneo — only to…
Tropical forests awaken the senses. The scent of moist earth, the feel of sticky, humid air, and the sight of an array of colorful life-forms are visceral delights. But perhaps…
JAKARTA — The rampant deforestation for monoculture plantation and logging in western Indonesian Borneo has exacerbated the extinction risks of three plant species endemic to the island’s riparian lowland rainforests,…
MINDANAO, Philippines — For about two decades now, members of the B’laan ethnic group have combed the forest-clad slopes of Mount Matutum from September to January, seeking out the beans…
Emmanuel Peni’s first response to a list of questions about his role in a campaign against a proposed copper and gold mine is to send back an idyllic photo of…
JAKARTA — When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With…
In 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan was identified as a new species of great ape — and immediately became the most endangered great ape on the planet, with a total population…
JAKARTA — When the Indonesian government announced its food estate program in 2020, it envisioned the establishment of large-scale agricultural plantations across the country. These plantations of crops like rice,…
JAKARTA — Every time a new Javan rhino calf is spotted, Indonesia’s environmental authorities issue an update of the precise population number for the near-extinct species. The rhino’s entire population…
BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA — A clearing for the ramp to a new toll road in the Indonesian Bornean city of Balikpapan gapes open on the side of a paved highway as big…
JAKARTA — The Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the main advocacy group for Indigenous communities in Indonesia, has won a 2023 Skoll Award for Social Innovation. Since its…
Boats and water hyacinths aren’t the only ones floating in the Philippines’ Laguna Lake. In some areas of Los Baños and Bay, small-scale floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) installations can be…
"In Indonesia, now, wherever you look there is corruption," the country’s Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin (Mahfud MD), said in Kompas recently. His statement strengthens data on…
JAKARTA — A new study has shown that farmers who aren’t traditionally perceived as having the most social and cultural power in their community can be more effective at convincing…
On March 20, officials in Vietnam seized almost 7,000 kilograms (15,400 pounds) of elephant tusks at the port of Haiphong. This confirms the gradual return to normalcy in the illicit…
This is the second article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part One. Niwat Roykaew, an environmental activist based…
This is the first article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part Two. The Mekong River carves a vast…
“Please tell me how I can make companies obey the law,” the official said. He was exasperated by the companies whose oil palm plantations saturated the subdistrict he headed in…
The dry season of 2015 was a devastating one for Indonesia, with around 100,000 fires engulfing thousands of hectares of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands on the islands of Sumatra,…
A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…
