Some of Switzerland’s largest pension funds have placed French logistics giant Bolloré SE on a blacklist. The Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR) decided its members should no longer invest…
JAKARTA — Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top two producers of palm oil, have set up a joint task force with the European Union to address their differences over a…
In just 72 hours this month, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
Joseph D’Cruz has more than 20 years of experience in sustainability, having worked for various international organizations like the United Nations Development Programme and the World Economic Forum, on issues…
MBONJO, Cameroon — Felled palm trees litter the ground at the entrance to Mbonjo, a town at the heart of Cameroun’s palm oil and rubber-producing region. Mbonjo hosts palm groves…
A Mongabay investigation into land-grabbing in the Brazilian Amazon has led to the suspension of the sustainability certificate of the country's second top palm oil exporter, as shown in email correspondence…
JAKARTA — Two major palm oil companies recently exited a committee that helps identify forest areas for protection, bringing the total number of firms quitting the framework since 2000 to…
JAKARTA — The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, two of the world’s largest palm oil producers, have intensified their criticisms against European Union trade policies, which they deem to be…
ALTO ACARÁ, Brazil — In November 2021, I went to Pará state, in the Brazilian Amazon, to investigate claims of land grabbing in traditional territories, leveled against one of Brazil's…
Rodents gnawing on oil palm crops can be a costly business. One study estimated that they can reduce yields by as much as 10%. Among the means used to tackle…
VICHADA, Colombia — Nearly 13 years have passed since the Guahibo Indigenous community El Trompillo was allegedly forcibly relocated from their territory. Members report persistent hunger and overcrowding in makeshift…
In June 2016, Corporación Autónoma de Santander (CAS), one of the environmental authorities in the northeastern Colombian department of Santander, found toxic waste was flowing from a palm oil mill…
This is the second in a two-part series. Read Part One. Palm oil, a popular cooking oil as well as an ingredient in an ocean of products ranging from cookies to cosmetics,…
This is the first in a two-part series. Read Part Two. San Javier de Cachaví is a small village of some 120 families in Ecuador near the Colombian border. The…
The Kinabatangan River rises in the beating heart of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, where ancient primary forest cloaks the slopes of steep-sided mountains. As it meanders east toward the Sulu Sea,…
A palm oil executive was secretly filmed describing the payment of bribes to public officials in exchange for logging permits and access to land in Papua New Guinea, in a…
JAKARTA — Intercropping, the practice of growing two or more crops in close proximity, could be one of the keys to mitigating the impact of oil palm plantations on forests…
During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known…
In a far-flung stretch of the Brazilian Amazon, the dense rainforest is slowly giving way to neat rows of oil palm that stretch for miles. Beyond the plantations, a narrow…
A recent Mongabay investigation into Brazil’s palm oil supply chain will be included in up to two legal actions targeting Biopalma, whose use of pesticides led to water contamination in an Indigenous reserve in the Amazon.
For the past 18 months, Mongabay has investigated allegations of widespread abuses by palm oil companies in Brazil, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for…
A Portuguese language version of this report is published on Mongabay Brasil TOMÉ-AÇU, Brazil — Guided by an Indigenous leader, we drove down dusty roads in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve, a…
JAKARTA — Palm oil giants Indonesia and Malaysia are teaming up to fight what they call a smear campaign targeted at the commodity. The move sets the stage for what…
Over the past two decades, orangutan researcher Marc Ancrenaz watched as a tidal wave of oil palm has engulfed his once-forested research sites in northern Borneo. When he would find…
JAKARTA — Palm oil-driven deforestation is slowing down in Southeast Asia in 2020 but a handful of low-profile companies continue to drive the majority of the destruction, according to a…
JAKARTA — A new study on certified oil palm plantations and their links to past deforestation has sparked a debate over whether they can be considered sustainable if they’re established…
SAHN, Sierra Leone — The day they came, Margaret Fascia was in her forest garden of cocoa trees, pineapple plants, palms, ferns and cassavas. Like most days of the week,…
MBONJO, Cameroon — The first time Emmanuel Elong wrote a letter to Vincent Bolloré was in 2013. “The impact of the group that you are controlling on our lives is…
Between 1885 and 1908, Belgium’s King Leopold II exerted control over a vast area of Africa that would later become the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His rule was characterized…
