Recent News

4 July 2009
ENDANGERED orang-utans being raised in Australian zoos for return to Indonesia are about to have their rainforests razed to supply the global market for toilet and photocopy paper.

1 July 2009
In an effort to help save some of the world's disappearing tropical forests the United States is offering Indonesia some much needed debt relief.

30 June 2009
MALAYSIAN wildlife authorities have rescued three baby orangutans believed to have been smuggled into the country, in raids on a zoo and an ostrich breeder, a report said on Tuesday.

26 June 2009
As Borneo's rain forests are razed for oil palm plantations, wildlife centers are taking in more and more orphaned orangutans and preparing them for reintroduction into the wild. But the endangered primates now face a new threat — there is not enough habitat where they can be returned.

26 June 2009
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the World Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007: "The key understanding is to save the orang utan. For that, we must save the forest and by that, we are doing our part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

23 June 2009
A famous British company, Jardines, is profiting as the lowland forest – which shelters the few remaining orang-utans – is razed to make way for massive palm oil plantations, reports Kathy Marks in Tripa, Indonesia

20 June 2009
Within a vast deforested area on Borneo island, Australia and Indonesia hope to turn an ecological disaster into a global lesson on how to help local communities save tropical forests and fight climate change.

16 June 2009
The nation's most recalcitrant fast food chain has capitulated. Yum! Restaurants, makers of KFC, will ditch its artery- clogging palm oil for a healthier alternative, two years after the company stared down the Federal Government and refused to change its ways.

6 June 2009
Selling credits for the billions of tons of carbon that are locked in Indonesia's tropical rain forests could be as profitable as converting these areas into palm oil plantations, a study released Friday found.

29 May 2009
Carbon credits derived from a fledgling forest conservation scheme for developing nations will struggle to compete with palm oil as an investment, industry advisers and conservationists said on Friday.

28 May 2009
Indonesia aims to more than double its crude palm oil output to 40 million tonnes by 2020 through increased yields and more plantations, officials said Wednesday.

19 May 2009
AN INDONESIAN paper company is planning to log an area of unprotected jungle which is being used as a reintroduction site for about 100 critically endangered orangutans, activists said on Monday.

15 May 2009
The Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) has recorded a significant decrease in the population of the morio (Pongo Pygmaeus Morio) orangutan in Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan.

11 May 2009
The operators of Britain's first "biofuel" power plants are considering burning palm oil, which is blamed for causing rainforest destruction in south-east Asia.

2 May 2009
It's an invisible ingredient, really, palm oil. You won't find it listed on your margarine, your bread, your biscuits or your KitKat. It's there though, under "vegetable oil". And its impact, 7,000 miles away, is very visible indeed.

1 May 2009
A cooking oil that is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain's leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found.

29 April 2009
Growing economic pain may increasingly force consumers to turn to palm oil, one of the cheapest cooking oils, a move that could scupper nascent plans to slow deforestation in Southeast Asia.

16 April 2009
Over the last 40 years, global oil palm cultivation has increased exponentially, with 43 percent of the total cultivated oil palm crop currently produced in Indonesia. This inception of palm oil as a valuable commodity, particularly as biofuel, has dramatically accelerated deforestation in Borneo, with only a third of the original forest cover expected to remain by 2020.

16 April 2009
The trade in Sumatran orangutans for pets shows little sign of decline and is taking the species to the brink of extinction, a report concludes.

12 April 2009
A protected Sumatran forest which is home to a Perth-raised orang-utan released into the wild in a worldwide first two years ago could be logged, according to Australian Orang-utan Project president Leif Cocks.

8 April 2009
New US and European Union efforts to clamp down on the illegal timber trade are expected to take a multi-billion dollar annual toll on Indonesian exports because the south-east Asian nation has failed to enact standards for wood-based products in spite of years of debate.

15 March 2009
This is not a documentary for the faint-hearted but it is a documentary that should be viewed by as many people as possible. Winner of Best Documentary Short in the recent Durango Independent Film Festival, and directed by Moez Moez, ôGreenö documents the last hours of a female orangutan's life.

9 March 2009
Indonesia has applied to join a World Bank programme that supports developing nations' efforts to fight deforestation and help them earn cash through the sale of tradeable carbon credits. The Bank's $350 million Forest Carbon Partnership Facility aims to support developing states design and create projects under a U.N.-backed scheme that could eventually earn poorer nations billions of dollars a year by protecting their forests.