About oranguta

5 April 2011
The tragic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last month is likely to boost wood imports into the recovering nation, adding increased pressure on the already imperiled rainforests of Southeast Asia.

29 March 2011
The state of our forests has reached critical condition in the last several years. Indonesia has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation.

March 7th, 2011
Another day and there's another study that undermines the case for biofuels as an eco-friendly source of energy.

6 March 2011
Their black eyes peer from the slats of wooden cages, hundreds of orangutans orphaned after their mothers were shot or hacked to death for straying out of Indonesia's rapidly disappearing forests in search of food.

4 March 2011
For those not familiar with images of a tropical forest being depleted, it is difficult to imagine the level of desperation faced by indigenous populations who have retained their customary rights to live and depend on the forest’s environment according to their traditional ways.

1 March 2011
ONE of the world's biggest pulp and paper companies engaged in “systematic, sophisticated and long-running'' collusion to fix the price of paper in Australia, the Federal Court has found.

21 February 2011
Green activists said on Wednesday that the government’s much-hyped plan for a moratorium on new logging concessions would only apply to forests that were already protected in the first place.

21 February 2011
Environmentalists and the government have welcomed a pledge by Indonesia's largest palm oil producer to follow new standards to protect carbon-rich forests and peat land.

20 February 2011
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is slated to sign a presidential instruction this month, serving as the country's legal basis to stop the handing out of licenses to convert primary forest and peatland for business urposes.

11 February 2011
A major palm oil producer is joining forces with environmental campaigners in a bid to ramp up forest protection.

7 February 2011
An increasing part of Malaysia’s palm oil is produced at the account of huge areas of tropical peatswamp forests.

5 February 2011
The State Enterprises Ministry is pushing the 14 government-run plantation companies to speed up their expansion plans to capitalize on rising prices and growing demand for agricultural commodities in the international market.

2 February 2011
Indonesia admitted Tuesday that hundreds of mine and plantation companies are operating illegally on Borneo island, and promised to beef up law enforcement to protect forests and threatened species

25 January 2011
This post was prompted by emails from groups seemingly (at the time, and now confirmed) associated with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) that made dubious claims about the environmental, social, and economic performance of the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia. Evaluation of these claims has now raised serious questions on APP's commitment to sustainability.

14 January 2011
The delay of a scheduled moratorium on forest conversion that was supposed to be enforced at the beginning of the year is the result of lobbying by businesses operating in the country's forests, an official says.

5 January 2011
In efforts to save the world's remaining rainforests great hopes have been pinned on "degraded lands" — deforested lands that are presently sitting idle in tropical countries.

13 December 2010
Close to 90 percent of the world’s orangutans are found in Indonesia. And Kalimantan is their home. Which is why the orangutan is widely known as the island’s flagship species.

12 December 2010
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig, today announced the Gillard Government will introduce legislation restricting the importation and sale of illegally logged timber.

8 December 2010
Can rich nations pay a corruption-riddled government to protect its rainforests?

25 November 2010
A $1 billion dollar deal with Norway to save Indonesia's forests and cut planet-warming carbon emissions will trigger a much-needed shake up of Indonesia's notorious bureaucracy, a top official said.

24 November 2010
Vague legal definitions may allow Indonesia to class forests as 'degraded' and 'rehabilitate' the land with palm trees and biofuel crops.

22 November 2010
A manager with one of Australia's most famous food companies predicts the food industry will phase out palm oil, as the building industry did asbestos.

9 November 2010
The Netherlands has committed to only using palm oil certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) by 2015, providing a huge boost for the certification standard which aims to improve the social and environmental performance of the world's most productive oil crop.

1 November 2010
Engaging businesses instead of being confrontational could help activists' cause.

October 22, 2010

Illegal forest clearing fires in Indonesia's Sumatra Island are sending haze across the Malacca Strait to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, causing the worst air pollution since 2006, officials say.

October 22nd 2010

The Indonesian government is imposing a moratorium on forest clearing in return for $1 billion grant from Norway to fund projects to curtail deforestation and land degradation. Environmental groups and some businesses welcome the freeze.