Recent News

5 February 2010
The European Commission and some EU member states hope to redefine palm oil plantations as "forests," according to a leaked document from the EU executive.

26 January 2010
Project to create sustainable palm oil project undermined by Western firms

25 January 2010
Payments to developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation will only succeed if corruption and lack of financial management capacity are addressed, says new report.

21 January 2010
A study by the government has recommended a moratorium on peatland conversion if the country wants to meet its pledged emission cuts to tackle climate change.

15 January 2010
The Forestry Ministry’s plan to allow more mining firms operate in forests could hinder the government’s efforts to meet emission reduction targets, as pledged by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

4 January 2010
Balikpapan Bay in East Kalimantan is home to an incredible variety of ecosystems: this wilderness, along with all of its myriad inhabitants, are threatened by a plan to build a bridge and road connecting the towns of Penajam and Balikpapan.

3 January 2010
Instead of making exaggerated claims about species becoming extinct, NGOs could make progress on issues like deforestation by collaborating more closely with companies, claims a new report

21 December 2009
A day after Indonesian officials at the UN Climate talks praised PT Sinar Mas, the country's largest palm oil producer, for its sustainable operations, international conservation group Greenpeace took another swing at Sinar Mas, this time taking aim at its pulp and paper arm.

21 December 2009
The world has less than 20 years left to save the orangutan, according to conservationists who predict the charismatic red ape will become extinct if no action is taken to protect its jungle habitat.

15 December 2009
ELEVEN members of the US Congress have written to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, urging him to fulfil an election promise to ban imports of illegally logged timber.

11 December 2009
A company that produces many of Britain’s best-known household brands has been exposed as contributing to the destruction of rainforests by buying thousands of tonnes of illegal palm oil.

6 December 2009
It’s the hottest acronym going in the world of climate change. The UN-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is being touted as both the savior of rain forests and a new natural resource commodity that will bring untold riches to the developing world.

7 December 2009
Driving through Indonesia's central Sumatra, it appears that all life on earth has been obliterated, like a scene from some apocalyptic movie.

7 December 2009
LifeMosaic brings two films on different aspects of REDD in Indonesia.

3 December 2009
There are two important things to know about tracking wild elephants, and it's better to learn both of them before you're actually in the jungle, tracking wild elephants.

1 December 2009
Environmental nongovernmental organizations released a report on Monday accusing Australia of using a bilateral forestry project in Kalimantan to avoid reducing emissions at home while ignoring the welfare of indigenous peoples here.

27 November 2009
A report on how palm oil is destroying virgin rainforest and threatening the survival of the endangered orang utans, among others, in Malaysia and Indonesia was awarded the 'Environment Story of the Year' by Foreign Press Association's Media Awards.

20 November 2009
PERTH Zoo's newest addition to the orangutan enclosure made her public debut today as the face of a campaign to help save her species.

13 November 2009
Members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative developing criteria to improve the environmental performance of palm oil, agreed to declare the Bukit Tigapuluh Ecosystem in Sumatra a 'high conservation value area'.

13 November 2009
At least another 50 North Sumatra orangutans are being prepared for release into their natural habitat in Indonesia to speed up the multiplication of the big apes, 97 percent of whose DNA are human.

12 November 2009
40% of lowland forests in Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo cleared in 15 years

7 November 2009
R.S.P.O. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil upset some conservationists when it concluded its annual meeting this week without including greenhouse gas emissions standards in its certification process.

28 October 2009
Insiders say international initiative to set environmental standards for palm oil production is 'on brink of collapse'

28 October 2009
Global food giant Nestle has announced its commitment to using only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil by 2015, the year when it said sufficient quantities were expected to be available.

28 October 2009
Almost 1000 hectares of degraded land in the area designated Heart of Borneo is to be restored as orangutan habitat, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding between WWF-Malaysia and the State of Sabah yesterday.