Recent News

22 June 2011
Indigenous peoples of Indonesian Borneo on Wednesday demanded a halt to internationally backed forest conservation schemes, saying they are trampling their rights and robbing their lands.

15 June 2011
In December 2007, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched Indonesia’s orangutan conservation strategy and action plan, which calls for all wild orangutan populations to be viable and stable by 2017.

15 June 2011
Parliament is considering new food-labelling laws that would force food companies to disclose if their product contains palm oil or genetically modified material.

20 May 2011
Indonesia has banned cutting down peatland and primary forests for two years Friday in a financial deal with Norway that officials say will protect half of the remaining forests in the tropical archipelago.

20 May 2011
Norway welcomed on Friday a plan by Indonesia to impose a two-year moratorium on logging in primary forests despite a five-month delay to the deal.

20 May 2011
Environmentalists said Friday a long-awaited moratorium on logging in Indonesia, part of a $1 billion climate deal with Norway, is a "disaster" for forests and will do little to fight global warming.

16 May 2011
Deep in the rainforests of Malaysian Borneo in the late 1980s, researchers made an incredible discovery: The bark of a species of peat swamp tree yielded an extract with potent anti-HIV activity.

5 May 2011
Determining what planet the Malaysian palm oil industry inhabits is about as difficult to comprehend as the arguments they use in support of consuming their crop.

25 April 2011
Back in December I wrote an article for Mother Jones about Indonesia's efforts to reduce its levels of deforestation and, by extension, its greenhouse gas emissions, which are the third highest in the world, trailing only the U.S. and China.

18 April 2011
Malaysia's palm oil lobby has reacted angrily to a push for labels to be added to foods containing the substance.

14 April 2011
Study confirms links between deforestation and local elections in Indonesia. Politicians in forest districts appear to often rely on funding from loggers, plantation developers, and miners to fund their campaigns.

6 April 2011
The main sustainable palm oil industry group Wednesday suspended an ongoing certification process for major plantation firm IOI Corp. Bhd. (1961.KU) following land dispute complaints and charges of deforestation by non-governmental organizations, a move that market participants said could threaten the company’s supply contracts with major consumer firms.

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.