Articles by Basten Gokkon

JAKARTA — A newborn Javan rhino calf has been spotted in Indonesia, but the good news is tempered by questions over the species’ population trend and reports of an increase…

JAKARTA — Communities on an island in eastern Indonesia increasingly support the idea of a marine protected area in an effort to reverse declining fish stocks in their waters. A…

JAKARTA — In early September, a whale shark washed up on a beach in the Indonesian province of West Java. Within hours, locals had chopped up the 7-meter (23-foot) fish…

JAKARTA — Environmental policy experts are calling on the presidential hopefuls in Indonesia’s election next year to lay out their strategies for moving the country away from fossil fuels and…

JAKARTA — A quota-based fisheries management system that the Indonesian government introduced earlier this year has already run up against opposition for undermining the role of local authorities and fishing…

JAKARTA — Uncontrolled burning of plastic waste on Indonesian beaches has given rise to plastic-rock hybrids that deposit in and may pollute coastal ecosystems and fisheries, a new study has…

JAKARTA — Male orangutans that resettle to a new area appear to be imitating the behavior of local individuals in an effort to survive and find a future home range,…

GORONTALO, Indonesia — Marine and fisheries activists in Indonesia are ramping up their calls for the revocation of a new government regulation allowing the export of sea sand, saying the…

Editor's note: Mongabay has withdrawn this article from publication. On July 6, Mongabay published a news article based on a scientific journal article entitled "Prioritization of peatland restoration and conservation…

JAKARTA — Small-scale and traditional fishers make the greatest contribution to Indonesia’s total fish production, driving the country’s rise as one of the world’s top fishing nations. In an effort…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government says it will reduce its annual tuna catch, the world’s largest, by a tenth in an effort to sustain the future of the fisheries. The…

LEGIAN, Indonesia — Indonesia is developing tuna farming in an effort to boost its aquaculture sector and lift some pressure from the world’s largest marine tuna fisheries. Indonesia catches more…

JAKARTA — Environmental activists and marine experts have criticized the Indonesian government’s decision to lift a 20-year-old ban on exporting sea sand, saying the policy will exacerbate ecological damage for…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is considering applying an international treaty to fight illegal fishing at more ports across the country, to gain better oversight of the all-important fishing industry.…

JAKARTA — Indonesia has put nearly a tenth of its national waters, the sixth-largest maritime jurisdiction of any country, under some form of protection. But poor management means these protected…

JAKARTA —  A decade of protection and natural regeneration of tropical forests has helped bird populations increase in the southern lowlands of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, but continued wild trapping by…

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 — 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 — 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,…

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 — 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…

JAKARTA — “It was heaven,” says Indonesian fisheries scientist Alyssa “Elle” Wibisono, describing her first ever scuba diving experience in the Komodo Islands when she was a high school student.…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out a new fisheries management policy that, among other things, caps the catch quota for industrial fishers, but also allows foreign investment back…

SEPAKU/BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — In 1977, when Darna was about 8 years old, her family moved from Indonesia’s central island of Java to Borneo, its largest. They were among the tens…

JAKARTA — Marine observers in Indonesia have warned of a potential rise in illegal and unreported fishing in the wake of a new policy for how the government collects revenue…

Machine learning can help conservationists monitor climate impacts across large swaths of marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task never possible before. The Delta Maps machine learning tool…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has welcomed a recent decision by fisheries regulators to curtail the use of controversial fish-aggregating devices, or FADs, which critics blame for a steep decline…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is designing a new scheme to measure the long-term benefits provided by the country’s marine and coastal ecosystems. The mechanism, known as ocean accounting and…

More than half of known species of coral reef sharks and rays are threatened with extinction, according to new research that underscores the urgent need for improved regional fisheries and…