In 2019, Malawi registered a massive win in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade. Intelligence-driven operations culminated in the arrest of more than a dozen members of the Chinese-led…
SOUTH SIBERUT, Indonesia — As night falls over the Siberut jungle, a fire crackles inside the Tateburuk clan’s wooden home, or uma. The walls are covered in traditional Mentawai carvings…
Authorities managing one of the last protected areas on Earth that still hosts Sumatran tigers must do more to deter poaching and promote alternative livelihoods for local communities, a new…
Siamangs are the largest of the 20 gibbon species, and belong to their own genus, Symphalangus. Distributed across Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, and the southernmost part of Thailand, their unforgettable and…
ROKAN HULU/PADANG/CENTRAL ACEH, Indonesia — In separate incidents in early March, officials across three Indonesian provinces rescued a critically endangered Sumatran tiger with its leg amputated, arrested six people for…
JAKARTA — Nearly half of Indonesia’s peatlands are vulnerable to flooding due to degradation caused by unchecked exploitation, with 6 million hectares (15 million acres) — an area twice the…
JAKARTA — Residents of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra are seeking protection from the country’s National Human Rights Commission after reportedly facing intimidated for filing a lawsuit against three…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia – The pempek restaurants in the Plaju neighborood were full to the gills in early March. Palembang chefs pulverized mudfish caught from the Musi River into subtle variations…
For the Akit tribe of Bengkalis and Pelalawan districts in Riau province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, land is more than just soil beneath their feet: it is their…
JAKARTA — Nearly 200,000 people have signed a petition calling on U.K. multinational Jardine Matheson to cancel its plan to expand deeper into Indonesia’s Batang Toru Forest, the only known…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, has filed a formal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing 47 companies of environmental destruction and corruption. The companies, which operate in…
LAKE SINGKARAK, Indonesia — Mardianis recalls reading the Quran with his parents and two children here on the western shore of Lake Singkarak before the desperate cries of galodoh. A…
JAKARTA/BATAM, Indonesia — Mounting reports of illegal seabed dredging in Indonesian waters have raised ecological alarm bells following the resumption of a controversial policy of sand exports. On Feb. 10,…
KAMPAR, Indonesia — The information from Radio Komunitas Lintas Subayang 107.7 FM reaches the remote corners of the Sumatran forest from a small broadcasting house in a market. “Accessing telecoms…
TANJUNG LEIDONG, Indonesia — At around 5:30 a.m., after the tide starts to recede, Zulkifli Dalimunthe rushes to the shore a stone’s throw from his house, where he anchors his…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deforestation is once again rising after several years of decline, with 2024 marking the highest rate since 2021. The data also show that the vast majority of…
TEBO, Indonesia — Dewita’s voice cracked through tears as she read her personal statement before a court on Dec. 3 in Tebo, a landlocked district in Jambi province on the…
JAKARTA — Illegal deforestation has reportedly surged to record levels in a wildlife reserve at the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island that’s known as the “orangutan capital of the…
JAKARTA — Prominent Indonesian environmental forensic expert Bambang Hero Saharjo faces yet another potential lawsuit for serving as a state witness against alleged violators, this time in a high-profile tin…
ENGGANO ISLAND, Indonesia — Milson Kaitora’s grandparents never had trouble finding water to grow food here on Enggano Island. But today, coastal abrasion is pushing back the shoreline of Milson’s…
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…
Authorities in Indonesia have rescued more than 6,500 wild birds being trafficked from the island of Sumatra and destined for Java, in what’s been hailed as the single largest seizure…
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…
JAKARTA — In Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, conservation groups and authorities have built canopy bridges that stitch back together primate habitat, including for orangutans, that were fragmented by roads over…
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 — Residents of Indonesia’s South Sumatra province have filed a lawsuit against three pulpwood companies for a toxic haze that they blame on repeated burning in their concessions. The…
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 — A controversial zinc-and-lead mine being developed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra has hit a roadblock after the country’s Supreme Court ordered the revocation of its environmental permit.…
PALEMBANG/PANDEGLANG, Indonesia — Authorities in Indonesia are investigating possible links between a recent bust of rhino horns for sale and a killing spree of Javan rhinos still being uncovered in…
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…
SIPAHUTAR, Indonesia — On the Indonesian island of Sumatra lives a man named Efron Simanjuntak. With a stern face and thick, graying mustache, he roams the forests near the village…
