MENDAHARA ULU, Indonesia — At the end of 2018, three communities in this subdistrict on the island of Sumatra were given rights to manage their local peatland by Indonesian President…
SAROLANGUN, Indonesia — On a night in early July, Solikin was awake chasing elephants past sunrise. The animals had entered the community’s oil palm fields and raised hell, mashing hundreds…
JAMBI — A quintet of Jambi residents gathered one morning in May at the home of Leni Haini, an Indonesian environmental activist who last year received a prestigious award from…
A new study recommends returning oil palm biomass to planting areas to maintain soil health — specifically, by replenishing the soil with silicon. The research was published in April by…
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…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Rahmad Saleh Simbolon, who died of a heart attack on Aug. 9 at age 47, is remembered by both civil society and government officers as a dedicated…
The Kerinci Seblat landscape, a highly biodiverse rainforest in western Sumatra, is one of the Indonesian island’s crown jewels. Anchored by the 14,000-square-kilometer (5,405-square-mile) Kerinci Seblat National Park, its mountainous…
JAKARTA — For decades, oil palm farmers in Indonesia have drained — and destroyed — tropical peatlands on the basis that the crop doesn’t grow well in the boggy soil.…
MUARA JAMBI, Indonesia — In a wood-plank house on the banks of the Batang Hari River, a dukun, or traditional healer, named Siti Hawa, 62, handles a grass-like plant topped…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Conservation authorities in Indonesia have reported the death of a Sumatran tiger captured in October following reports of deadly attacks on people. Officials have linked the death…
JAKARTA — Activists are warning of “severe environmental and social risks” from plans by two of the world’s largest paper companies to significantly expand their operations in Indonesia. Both Asia…
JAKARTA — A new study strengthens the case for redirecting a planned mining road around the largest surviving tract of lowland tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, but the…
JAKARTA — Pulpwood companies obliged to restore the degraded peatlands inside their concessions in Indonesia are instead continuing to cultivate the land, a new investigative report says. The report by…
JAKARTA — Conflicts over land flared up across Indonesia in 2020, as Indigenous and rural communities tried to hold off pulpwood, palm oil and logging companies ramping up their expansion…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Armed with a flashlight, 43-year-old Musadat walks slowly through the thick and dense Harapan forest, one of the last remaining expanses of lowland tropical rainforest on the…
Along the banks of the Batanghari River on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, thick black coal dust billows from mountainous stockpiles belonging to the coal company PT Tegas Guna Mandari…
JAKARTA — Newly published research has linked the spread of oil palm and rubber plantations across a watershed area of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island to worsening floods in the region. The…
BATANGHARI, Indonesia — On a sunny day in March, six teenagers have their hands full planting seedlings in a patch of burned forest in Sumatra. “This was our first time…
JAKARTA — A broad coalition of civil society groups has called on investors and buyers to stop doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest…
JAKARTA — Villagers in Sumatra accuse a pulpwood plantation company of using a drone to spray herbicide to kill their crops, calling it the latest in a series of illegal…
JAMBI, Indonesia — As Indonesia grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, infections from another animal-borne disease have gone on the rise largely unnoticed and likely driven by climate change, with more…
JAMBI, Indonesia — “If the forest is gone, where else can we live?” Teguh Santika is an indigenous woman from the Batin Sembilan community. Her home is in the Harapan…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Agus, a shrimp fisherman, sits pensively outside his home in Jambi, a province in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island. He’s among thousands of fishermen who, for several weeks now,…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has fined an palm oil company $1.8 million for fires that occurred on its concession in 2015, capping a four-year ordeal by the government to…
JAMBI, Indonesia — Clouds of haze have blanketed parts of Jambi province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, as slash-and-burn clearing to make way for oil palm plantations rages on.…
The rainforests that once carpeted Indonesia's Sumatra Island are among the world's most biodiverse ecosystems, home to iconic species like the Sumatran tiger, rhino and orangutan. They are also among…
JAMBI, Indonesia — A biodiverse patch of forest in Sumatra threatened by encroaching oil palm plantations and illegal logging could soon be carved up by a road for coal trucks.…
TABIR, Indonesia — Several hours into the search, Karina was still hiding, deep in the undergrowth, far from the road. The mission, led by a team of forest rangers, police…
JAKARTA — Its name in Indonesian means “hope,” but there seems to be little of that remaining for the Harapan rainforest, a tropical woodland oasis in an ever-expanding desert of…
PADANG BIRAU, Indonesia: It’s been more than two months since Rasid has felt safe sleeping in his bedroom. Ever since a crack appeared in the wall, he’s slept in his…
