One in five fish sold globally is caught illegally, according to C4ADS, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that tracks illicit trade networks. That’s between 11 million and 26 million metric…
Last week, Indonesia joined 81 other nations by signing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement, which replaces the Kyoto Protocol as the country’s commitment to reducing its…
rossbow in hand, Jo Marie Acebes strides the deck of the outrigger fishing boat she has refitted for tracking whales off the Philippines’ Babuyan Islands. She’s scanning for a target…
armed salmon escaping from Norwegian aquaculture facilities are mating with wild salmon frequently enough to dilute their genetic stock, according to a recent paper. As a result the wild salmon…
To mark its independence day on August 17, Indonesia’s fisheries ministry will scuttle 34 fishing boats — from Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and China — all caught fishing with faulty…
1. Half lost, half survive Mangroves once covered much of the world’s tropical coastline, but half of the mangrove forests have been lost in the last half century, according to…
rotected waters contain more sharks than open-access fishing zones, concluded a recently released study based in the waters of West Papua, Indonesia. The research adds to mounting evidence that “spatial…
n the library shelves of its Nyaru Menteng rehabilitation center in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) has row upon row of bound volumes, each bearing the…
oop,” went the hi-tech pressurized Spezialgeräte GmbH Telinject gun. And yet again “foop.” The crack sniper from the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) lumbered about on the boggy forest floor,…
Last year, Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama signed a gubernatorial instruction meant to change Indonesia’s reputation as a cumbersome, bureaucratic place to invest. He proposed reducing the number of…
Helicopter over a forest supplanted by a mature oil palm plantation and it will look verdant from the sky. The ocean surface over a bombed-out reef still glimmers aquamarine. But…
Clad in wetsuits, four divers finned past a grey slope of rubble. This desolate, submarine pile in the Wakatobi islands in eastern Indonesia is all that remains from years of…
The final story in a three-part series exploring changes in Indonesia's network of marine protected areas through the lens of Wakatobi National Park. Read the first and second articles. his…
This is the second story in a three-part series exploring changes in Indonesia’s network of marine protected areas through the lens of Wakatobi National Park. Read the first one here.…
This is the first story in a three-part series exploring changes in Indonesia's network of marine protected areas through the lens of Wakatobi National Park. Read the second story here.…
Like all big fishing ports in Indonesia, Tanjung Luar is one that you can smell before you see. At 7 a.m., it is a thick crowd of fishwives, turmeric painted…
On Thursday, Rizal Ramli replaced Indroyono Soesilo as Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime affairs. The task of overseeing multiple ministries is not foreign to Ramli, who served as coordinating minister…
bdul "Bolong" Hanan had a baby turtle in one hand and a toothbrush in the other. He scrubbed the squirming two-month-old vigorously before plopping it back into one of the…
:00 am; Labuhan Lombok, Indonesia. It's offloading time on the 30-foot-long M/V Nusa Indah 2. Crewmen pop the lid off the hold and pull yellowfin tuna from the icy pool…
A Malaysian-flagged vessel was blown up in the waters of Belawan for illegal fishing in Indonesian waters. Photo: Ayat S Karokaro. The Indonesian Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry redefined fireworks…
Yu Feng, a vessel with Taiwanese flags suspected of fishing illegally, sails near Sierra Leone in 2009 before being detained by the U.S. Coast Guard and Sierra Leonean government agencies.…
Fish being loaded into a truck for processing and export in Batu Putih, North Sulawesi. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. In late December, Indonesian officials seized a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-manned vessel…
"This is for the future of our oceans," Indonesian Fishery Minister Susi Pudjiastuti exclaimed when she announced minimum size limits for lobster and crab catches in January this year. It…
Wooden fishing rigs off Java's coast. Photo: Rhett A. Butler On Sunday, the Indonesian ombudsman asked the maritime affairs minister to help fishermen adapt to the government ban on seine…
A fishing boat, which was flying Indonesian colors, is sunk off the coast of Riau, Sumatra on February 9, 2015, after the fishery ministry evacuated the all-Thai crew. Photo courtesy…
Wooden fishing rigs off the coast of Java. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The Indonesian fisheries ministry has introduced two divisive pieces of legislation aimed at increasing the sustainability of…
Fish being loaded into a truck for processing and export in Batu Putih, North Sulawesi. Photos by Rhett A. Butler. Today Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) signed a memorandum of…
What does Jokowi have in mind for marine development and conservation? Indonesia’s new president, Joko Widodo (or Jokowi, as he’s popularly called) spent half his 11-minute inaugural address thanking God,…
This article first appeared in The Seashore Issue of the culinary magazine Lucky Peach. The piece was funded under the Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative program. Why is shrimp so cheap?…
A tale of two fish: deep challenges ahead for Indonesia's fishery managers Part I - Cyanide fishing and foreign bosses off Sulawesi's coast Part II - Boom but mostly bust:…
