On Friday, Indonesia said palm oil companies operating inside forested areas would be fined a total of $310 million, reported Reuters. Indonesia and Malaysia are responsible for most of the world’s palm oil production — 85 percent — a major driver of deforestation, the Yale Center for Business and the Environment said. Deforestation accounts for […]
The Bogor Institute of Agriculture, a leading forestry university in Indonesia, is proposing a controversial plan: to define planting palm oil plantations as reforestation efforts. Typically creating palm oil plantations is considered deforestation, as it requires clearing native forests for monocultures.
By Hans Nicholas Jong Construction of a hydropower plant in the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan species on the Indonesian island of Sumatra might be delayed for up to three years due to COVID-19 and funding issues. Muhammad Ikhsan Asaad, who oversees the project for state-owned utility PLN, said the Batang Toru […]
It may be surprising that a universal basic income would also help the environment, but that is exactly what a new study found. A government program to help poor, rural Indonesians through direct cash payments had the unexpected effect of reducing deforestation by 30 percent in participating villages, according to a new study, as Newsweek […]
By Rizki Nugraha, Michaela Cavanagh and Holly Young Just like his father and grandfather, Alfian has spent his whole life working as a fisherman on the banks of the Batang Hari river in Rukam, Indonesia. In the village of 1,200 residents, rows of houses sit low to the ground beside the water, buttressed on the […]
By Hans Nicholas Jong The Indonesian government has backed down from a decision to scrap its timber legality verification process for wood export, amid criticism from activists and the prospect of being shut out of the lucrative European market. On May 11, the Ministry of Trade issued a regulation revoking its decision from February to […]
A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world’s largest oil palm plantation, in a vast project that has been mired in allegations of lawbreaking. If seen through to completion, the Tanah Merah project will generate an estimated $6 billion in timber and create […]
After nearly 15 inches of rain fell in one day and caused flash floods and landslides in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, that destroyed 60,000 homes and killed at least 43 people, the Indonesian Air Force sent two planes to drop salt on approaching rain clouds to break them up before they reached the city, according […]
At least 21 people have died in some of the deadliest flooding to swamp Jakarta in years, according to the latest report from Reuters. Unusually heavy rain began to fall in and around the Indonesian capital Dec. 31, 2019: 377 millimeters (approximately 14.8 inches) were recorded New Year’s Eve at an East Jakarta airport by […]