topic: Indonesia

topic: Indonesia

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Can ecotourism protect Raja Ampat, the ‘Crown Jewel’ of New Guinea?
- The world’s most biodiverse marine environment, Raja Ampat in Indonesia, is often seen as a conservation success story.
- With more than 20,000 square kilometers (7,700 square miles) of marine protected areas, the archipelago is famous for its government-supported conservation efforts, ecotourism, sapphire-blue waters, and stunning geography.
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, host Mike DiGirolamo travels to several islands in the area to speak with local communities about the benefits and challenges of ecotourism and to catch a glimpse of some amazing endemic species.

‘We don’t have much time’: Q&A with climate scientist Pierre Friedlingstein
- “It’s not going in the right direction yet,” Pierre Friedlingstein tells Mongabay of the effort to meet the Paris Agreement goals; a member of the IPCC and a climate professor, he says he’s mildly optimistic about the trend in global emissions.
- Friedlingstein says he’s hoping deforestation will go down in the coming years in Brazil, but he’s not sure that Indonesia, another major global carbon sink, is ready to go in the right direction at the moment.
- He says the COVID-19 pandemic showed that climate is still “not on the top of the list” of government priorities, given that all nations sought to boost economic growth after lockdowns, despite the carbon emissions they incurred.

Despite billions tied to clean supply chains, China’s Cofco still turns to deforesters
- Cofco is a state-run Chinese company with a mission of importing enough food to feed the country’s 1.4 billion people.
- In recent years, it has made bold pledges about combating deforestation and has adopted a series of policies to clean up its supply chains, receiving billions of dollars in reduced-interest loans to carry out these promises.
- But Cofco’s supply chains are still not free of deforestation, an investigation by investigative outlet Repórter Brasil produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network has found.

From declining deforestation to quitting coal, Indonesia marks a pivotal 2022
- 2022 saw a continued decline in deforestation in Indonesia, as well as financing deals for forest conservation and phasing out fossil fuels, and a scramble to keep up with changing EU timber regulations.
- The year also saw the passage of controversial amendments to Indonesia’s criminal code, friction between the government and researchers, and increasing concerns about the environmental cost of the country’s nickel boom for electric vehicle batteries.
- Here are some of the top environment stories and trends of 2022 from one of the world’s most important tropical forest countries.

Podcast: Could Brazil’s election decide the fate of the Amazon?
- In a new podcast dialogue with Mongabay’s top tropical forest news commentator (and CEO), Rhett A. Butler, we catch up on the biggest trends and news, like the upcoming Brazilian presidential election, which could alter the outlook for the Amazon going forward should Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva win: with 2022 looking like the worst year for Brazilian Amazon deforestation in 15 years, Lula’s campaigning on Amazon conservation and has a long track record on the topic.
- We also discuss Norway and Indonesia, which just renewed a previously canceled REDD+ agreement, in which Norwegians will pay to keep Indonesian forests standing.
- And the European Parliament voted in favor of a bill banning the import of 14 commodities linked to deforestation, setting a policy precedent requiring entities to track the supply chain of common goods derived from both legal and illegal deforestation into the EU.
- We discuss how these trends and new/renewed initiatives could change the prospects for global tropical forests amid the context of tipping points that some experts say we may have already passed.

Podcast: With less than 10 years to save Sumatran elephants, what’s being done?
- The provinces of North Sumatra and Aceh in Indonesia’s embattled and highly deforested island of Sumatra are some of the last holdouts for the critically endangered Sumatran elephant.
- With the clock running out to save them, and extractive industries like oil palm fragmenting their habitat, pushing them to the brink, villagers are taking measures into their own hands by reducing human-elephant conflict to save the species from further harm.
- Also in North Sumatra lies a controversial planned hydroelectric dam site in the last habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, a project that has also claimed 16 human lives in less than two years.
- On the Mongabay Newscast this week, Leif Cocks, founder of the International Elephant Project and the Orangutan Project, weighs in on the status of the Sumatran elephant and the Tapanuli orangutan.

Podcast: She’s here! Rare Sumatran rhino calf born at rhino sanctuary
- Indonesia’s environment ministry in March reported the birth of a Sumatran rhino calf.
- This calf is the first one born in captivity in nearly six years, stoking optimism for the captive-breeding program in Sumatra’s Way Kambas National Park.
- This bonus episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast features senior staff writer Basten Gokkon on the still-unnamed female rhino calf, and what this means for the future of this critically endangered mammal.

Podcast: The Trans-Papua Highway could lose billions and deforest millions of hectares
- Set to run some 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) and being built over the course of decades, the Trans-Papua Highway cuts across the entire length of Indonesian New Guinea’s two provinces.
- While nearly complete, it has not yet fully interlinked major cities, and has raised concerns among experts that it could open up the world’s third-largest swath of tropical rainforest to further deforestation. Tanah Papua has already lost 750,000 hectares of forest cover (1.85 million acres) over the past 20 years.
- A study published last September warns that if the Trans-Papua Highway spurs a similar spate of development on Papua as the Trans-Kalimantan Highway did on Borneo, the region could lose up to an additional 4.5 million hectares (11.12 million acres) of forest cover by 2036.
- For this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast, we interview David Gaveau, who founded The TreeMap (a forest loss monitoring platform), and distinguished professor at James Cook University, Bill Laurance to discuss the impacts the Trans-Papua Highway could have for Indonesian New Guinea.

Wildfires turn up the heat on farmers growing Indonesia’s ‘hottest’ pepper
- Farmers in the south of Indonesian Borneo have built up a reputation and a lucrative industry around their Hiyung chili pepper, said to be the hottest in the country.
- The pepper grows well in the swampy peat soil of the region; farmers here began planting it after their rice crops failed in the same acidic soil.
- But the chili peppers, which local officials say have elevated farmers’ income to six times the local average, are under threat from the perennial fires that sweep across Indonesia’s drained peatlands.

Forest loss in mountains of Southeast Asia accelerates at ‘shocking’ pace
- Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests, which support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet.
- A new study reveals that mountain forest loss in Southeast Asia is accelerating at an unprecedented rate throughout the region: approximately 189,000 square kilometers (73,000 square miles) of highland forest was converted to cropland during the first two decades of this century.
- Mountain forest loss has far-reaching implications for people who depend directly on forest resources and downstream communities.
- Since higher-elevation forests also store comparatively more carbon than lowland forests, their loss will make it much harder to meet international climate objectives.

Java’s mangroves pay a high price for stopping plastic flowing out to sea
- Mangroves are known to trap plastic waste and stop it entering the sea, but this defense comes at a high cost to mangrove forests themselves, a new study shows.
- Researchers working in Indonesia’s Central Java province found plastic carpeting half of the mangrove floor across their study area, covering roots and sediment layers and starving the trees of oxygen.
- The plastic accumulation could also harm mollusks, crabs and other soil-dwelling organisms forming the coastal food web’s foundations, which could trigger cascading impacts for larger animals.
- The study authors called for a reduction in plastic waste through education and policies such as bans on single-use plastic packaging.

Study calls for a marine reserve in a $500m fishing hotspot in Indonesia
- A new study proposes establishing a marine protected area in Indonesia’s Java Sea-Makassar Strait region, one of the top fishing grounds in the country.
- The study found that much of the commercially valuable snapper and grouper species caught in these shallow waters are juveniles, which compromises the sustainability of the species’ populations and of the $500 million fishery itself.
- Another expert says imposing an MPA in this key fishing area would be a bureaucratic challenge, and instead suggests introducing an annual close season, similar to the one for yellowfin tuna in Indonesia’s Banda Sea.
- The study authors have also called for a change in consumer behavior, noting that the desire for snappers that fit on a plate is what drives the fishing of juveniles.

Tigers threatened by a vast network of planned roads across Asia
- Tiger habitats are under threat from nearly 24,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) of new roads to be built by 2050.
- The explosion of new roads is driven in part by global development strategies such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
- Road construction contributes to three major threats to tigers: degradation of habitat, prey depletion, and poaching.
- Tigers are endangered, with fewer than 4,000 individuals still remaining in the wild.

Coronavirus outbreak may spur Southeast Asian action on wildlife trafficking
- Illegal wildlife trafficking remains a perennial problem in Southeast Asia, but with the ongoing spread of the new coronavirus, there’s added impetus for governments in the region to clamp down on the illicit trade.
- The coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, has infected more than 90,000 people worldwide and killed more than 3,000, according to the World Health Organization.
- Initial findings, though not conclusive, have linked the virus to pangolins, the most trafficked mammal on Earth and one of the mainstays of the illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia that feeds the Chinese market.
- Despite having a regional cooperation framework designed to curb wildlife trafficking, Southeast Asian governments have yet to agree on and finance a sustainability plan to strengthen efforts against the illegal trade.

With its $3.85b mine takeover, Indonesia inherits a $13b pollution problem
- The Indonesian government has acquired a majority stake in the operator of the Grasberg mine, one of the world’s biggest copper and gold mines.
- The $3.85 billion deal has been lauded as a move toward resource sovereignty, but there’s been little mention of who inherits the massive pollution legacy left from decades of mining waste being dumped in rivers and forests.
- Activists are also calling for clarity in how the acquisition will improve the lives of the indigenous Papuan communities living around the mine, as well as end the long-running conflicts pitting them against the mine operator and security forces.

One map to rule them all: Indonesia launches unified land-use chart
- The Indonesian government has launched a long-awaited unified map of land-use cover across the country, in an effort to resolve overlapping claims that have led to conflict, human rights abuses and environmental damage.
- With more than 17,000 islands and a combined land and sea area that is the seventh-largest in the world, Indonesia has a wide range of official maps, including for mining permits, free-trade zones, oil and gas blocks, and forestry areas.
- The unified land-use map, accessible online, is still missing maps of indigenous territories, while closely held maps of oil palm plantations are being added.

Environmental issues to be a focus of Indonesian presidential debates: official
- Indonesia is scheduled to hold a presidential election in April next year, and environmental issues have been guaranteed a spot at the debates in the upcoming campaign.
- Much of the corruption that besets the country, particularly at the local level, revolves around the exploitation of natural resources and land, making environmental management a key topic for the candidates to address.
- The April 17 election will be a repeat of the previous vote in 2014, with President Joko Widodo facing off against retired general Prabowo Subianto.

Waste management rules threaten to derail Indonesia mine takeover
- The Indonesian government expects to conclude this month the takeover of a controlling stake in the operator of the country’s Grasberg mine, the world’s biggest copper and gold mine.
- However, new requirements on waste management imposed by the environment ministry could derail the deal, according to officials from both sides involved in the negotiations.
- Among the requirements is that the operator, a subsidiary of Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan, slash the toxicity levels at its waste dumping sites around Grasberg.

In Indonesia’s relentless infrastructure push, taint of corruption weighs on environment
- Investigators in Indonesia have arrested the mayor and former mayor of the city of Kendari for allegedly taking bribes in the awarding of a contract to build a land bridge to a new port set to open next year.
- While the investigation is centered on corruption in the bidding process, activists have urged a thorough look into likely environmental violations, given that the project involves sea reclamation and forest-clearing.
- The project continues, but has already claimed the livelihoods of the fishing community on whose tiny island the new container port is being built.

Indonesian oil palm smallholders sue state over subsidy to biofuel producers
- A union of palm oil smallholders is challenging the allocation of a billion-dollar fund that they say fails to help them rejuvenate their low-yielding oil palms and instead unfairly subsidizes large biofuel producers.
- Only 1 percent of the fund went to the smallholder replanting program last year, while 89 percent went to the biodiesel subsidy. The government has promised to amend the split to 22:70 this year.
- But the government has also defended the subsidy, saying it needs to artificially boost the price of crude palm oil, to make biodiesel competitive with the regular diesel sold in the country — which is also subsidized by the state.

Unified land-use map for Indonesia nears launch, but concerns over access remain
- A unified database integrating all of the land-use maps currently in use in Indonesia is set for an earlier-than-expected launch this August, as the government scrambles to collate outstanding data from various agencies and regions.
- The one-map policy is seen as key to resolving a host of development and planning problems caused by overlapping and often contradictory maps wielded by different agencies, including the issue of plantations being permitted inside forest areas.
- The government, however, says access to the database will be restricted, and is drafting regulations that will govern who gets to see it.

Indonesia to punish state firm over litany of failures behind Borneo oil spill
- An official investigation into an oil spill last month in Indonesian Borneo found a lack of warning systems that would have alerted state oil company Pertamina to the leak hours earlier.
- The government has also found omissions in the company’s environmental impact assessment, and is preparing to impose a series of administrative sanctions as well as fines.
- Police are carrying out a criminal investigation in parallel to determine who was responsible for the spill, amid reports that a foreign-flagged coal ship may have cause the pipeline damage leading to the leak.

Small farmers not ready as Indonesia looks to impose its palm oil sustainability standard on all
- The Indonesian government plans to make its sustainable palm oil certification scheme, the ISPO, mandatory for small farmers by 2020. These farmers account for 40 percent of the total oil palm plantation area nationwide, but were exempted from the initial ISPO rollout.
- A recent study shows that these smallholders are not ready to adopt the standard. They face a variety of challenges, largely stemming from the tenuous nature of their land ownership claims.
- The Ministry of Agriculture fears that under the existing ISPO compliance regulation, many farmers will end up in prison for failing to comply by the deadline. The government is now drafting an updated ISPO regulation.

Activists fear for environmental protection under Indonesia’s revised Criminal Code
- Indonesian lawmakers aim to pass a long-awaited revision of the country’s Criminal Code this month, but already the draft has been widely criticized for rolling back personal freedoms and human rights.
- Activists say it also threatens to gut existing legislation on environmental protection, effectively going easy on polluters and other environmental violators.
- Problems identified include raising the bar for proving an environmental offense; more lenient sentencing prescriptions; and failing to hold the responsible parties accountable for environmental crimes.

Indonesia land swap, meant to protect peatlands, risks wider deforestation, NGOs say
- Under a government program, pulpwood and logging companies in Indonesia are eligible for a land swap if their existing concessions include at least 40 percent protected peatland.
- However, a lack of transparency over how the substitute areas are selected has led to fears that up to half the land that could potentially be awarded may be natural forest, thereby speeding up deforestation in the name of protecting peatland.
- There are also fears that granting eligible companies these substitute areas, which the government says will be on abandoned or undeveloped timber concessions, will reignite conflicts with local communities.
- The government has promised to publish a map of the land swap areas, adding it wants to ensure the new lands don’t include natural forests and won’t spark conflicts with local communities.

South Korean company under fire for alleged deforestation in Papua oil palm concession
- A report by WRI shows ongoing deforestation in an oil palm concession in Papua, Indonesia, operated by a subsidiary of South Korea’s POSCO Daewoo.
- The company has responded by saying its operations in Papua are legal and fully permitted.
- Concerns over deforestation by POSCO Daewoo have prompted other companies to say they will not allow its palm oil into their supply chains. These include big-name brands such as Clorox, Colgate Palmolive, IKEA, L’Oreal, Mars and Unilever.
- POSCO Daewoo has issued a temporary moratorium on land clearing in its Papua concession and hired a consultant to advise it on how to proceed with its operations there.

Indonesia’s dying timber concessions, invaded by oil palms, top deforestation table
- A study shows that selective-logging leases accounted for the highest rate of deforestation in three provinces studied from 2013 to 2016.
- While the discovery came as a surprise, the researchers attributed part of that deforestation to the illegal encroachment of oil palm plantations into many of these timber concessions. Another factor is the cutting of more trees than permitted by logging operators.
- Environmentalists warn the problem could get even worse if the government follows through on plans to lift a ban on exports of unprocessed logs, which has been in place since 1985 (with a brief hiatus from 1997 to 2001).

Study: Indonesia’s ambitious peat restoration initiative severely underfunded
- Indonesia will need an estimated $4.6 billion to restore some 20,000 square kilometers (7,720 square miles) of degraded peatland by its self-imposed deadline of 2020, a study suggests.
- To date, however, funding for the project that began in 2016 amounts to less than $200 million, with the result that only 5 percent of the restoration target has been achieved.
- The study authors say the Indonesian government faces a dilemma over whether to concentrate its resources in a smaller area or risk potentially ineffective restoration methods to cover the entire target area.

Indonesian graftbusters put a price tag on environmental crime
- Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency, the KPK, has alleged huge losses incurred by the state as a result of illegal mining permits handed out by a provincial governor. The severity of the charge relies heavily on estimates of environmental damage.
- The KPK sees the move as a breakthrough that could lead to heavier sentences and fines in corruption cases in Indonesia’s natural resources sector.
- NGOs, however, say the agency is pulling its punches and should have cracked down harder, including seeking fines in the same amount as the alleged losses to the state.
- In a twist in the case, the expert who helped derive the monetary figure for the environmental damages now faces a lawsuit from the defendant’s team, which claims he presented an inaccurate calculation.

Company outed for fires in Indonesian palm lease still clearing forests in timber concession, NGO finds
- Agribusiness conglomerate Korindo has since 2017 implemented a moratorium on forest clearing in its oil palm concessions, after it was found to be burning forests in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- A new report indicates that since then, the company may have degraded more than 30 square kilometers of pristine forest to build logging roads in one of its timber concessions — an area excluded from the self-imposed moratorium.
- The NGO Mighty Earth has called on the company to extend both the forest clearing moratorium and a high carbon stock approach, which it employs on its oil palm concessions, to its timber operations.

Indonesia launches bid to restore national park that’s home to tigers, elephants
- Tesso Nilo National Park in Sumatra is home to critically endangered tigers and elephants, but has been heavily deforested by illegal oil palm plantations and human settlements.
- The government has introduced a program to gradually relocate the people living within the park’s borders, by encouraging them to shift away from oil palm farming to alternative and sustainable forms of livelihood.
- If successful, the program could serve as a model for restoring other national parks across Indonesia, which face similar problems of human encroachment.

Five years after zero-deforestation vow, little sign of progress from Indonesian pulp giant
- Environmental watchdogs have criticized Indonesian paper behemoth Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) for not making good on the zero-deforestation pledge it made five years ago.
- The NGOs have highlighted several key problems in the implementation of APP’s Forest Conservation Program, including virtually no progress in addressing longstanding land conflicts with local communities, and the glacial pace of peatland restoration.
- APP has acknowledged some of the shortcomings in the implementation of its pledge, but says many of the outstanding issues and complex and that it remains committed to its goal.

Debates heat up as Indonesian palm oil moratorium is about to be signed
- Announced two years ago, a moratorium on new oil palm permits in Indonesia is about to be signed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
- But a coalition of environmental NGOs has criticized the latest draft of the moratorium, saying it contains many loopholes.
- The coalition has submitted a list of recommendations to the government, which has promised to follow up on their concerns.

Public access to Indonesian plantation data still mired in bureaucracy
- Indonesia’s agrarian ministry continues to hold out on releasing oil palm plantation data to the public, a year after the Supreme Court ordered it to comply with a freedom-of-information ruling.
- The ministry argues it is obliged to generate revenue from the release of such data, and that the lack of a payment mechanism prevents it from complying.
- It also initially dodged a request for similar data filed by the national mapping agency, citing the same reason, but complied after the anti-corruption agency intervened.

In eastern Indonesia, a forest tribe pushes back against miners and loggers
- The Forest Tobelo, an indigenous tribe in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, faces constant threat from illegal loggers and the expansion of mining leases.
- More than one third of the province’s total area has been allocated for mining leases.
- The community has chosen to fight back by drawing up its own maps of the land to which it has long laid claim, and by reporting illegal incursions into its forests.

Indonesia braces for return of fire season as hotspots flare up
- Indonesia’s annual forest fire season has started, with reports of blazes in four peat-rich provinces, all of which have declared a state of emergency.
- The stake is high for Indonesia to prevent the fires and resultant haze this year, as it prepares to host tens of thousands of athletes and visitors for the Asian Games. One of the host cities is in South Sumatra province, a perennial tinderbox.
- The Indonesian government rolled out extensive measures to prevent fires in the wake of the 2015 blazes, focusing on restoring drained peatland, but questions remain over the effectiveness of those efforts.

Activists: Palm oil must not get wider access to EU under Indonesia trade talks
- The prospect of greater access for Indonesian palm oil to the 28-nation EU market is expected to dominate trade negotiations taking place this week.
- Environmental activists from both Indonesia and Europe warn that granting this access could lead to even greater deforestation and more social conflicts in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil.
- For its part, the Indonesian government is seeking to push back against EU measures to phase out palm oil for use in biofuels by 2021.

Scientists from Indonesia, Germany and the Netherlands win Indonesian Peat Prize
- A team of scientists from Indonesia, Germany and the Netherlands has won the Indonesian Peat Prize for coming up with a fast, accurate and cost-effective way to map Indonesia’s vast tropical peatlands.
- The judges praise the winning methodology’s versatility, speediness and accuracy in mapping peatlands.
- Indonesia will have two years to fully adapt the winning methodology into the new peat-mapping standard, although some government agencies are clamoring to start adopting the system immediately.

As Indonesia gears up for elections, activists brace for an environmental sell-off
- This year, Indonesia will hold elections for governors, district heads and mayors across 171 regions, many of them home to vast natural resources.
- Environmental activists are worried that, as in previous election years, the campaigning this year will be rife with corruption, as candidates take kickbacks from plantation and mining operators in a quid pro quo for permits and other favors once in office.
- A key factor in the issue is the greater autonomy that local leaders enjoy managing their lands and resources, to the extent that they can even skirt some of the controls imposed by the central government.
- The central government has made assurances that its processes now are more transparent and accountable, making potential abuses at the local level less likely. Activists, though, are unconvinced, citing a longstanding lack of strong enforcement.

‘Eye of Papua’ shines a light on environmental, indigenous issues in Indonesia’s last frontier
- For decades the Papua region in Indonesia has remained the country’s least-understood, least-developed and most-impoverished area, amid a lack of transparency fueled by a strong security presence.
- Activists hope their new website, Mata Papua, or Eye of Papua, will fill the information void with reports, data and maps about indigenous welfare and the proliferation of mines, logging leases and plantations in one of the world’s last great spans of tropical forest.
- Companies, with the encouragement of the government, are fast carving up Papua’s land, after having nearly depleted the forests of Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo.

Faith in the forest helps Indonesia’s Dayaks keep plantations, loggers at bay
- Indigenous Dayak tribes of Borneo have longstanding traditions of performing various rituals throughout the agricultural cycle.
- These rituals keep communities united in protecting their forests, with which the Dayak maintain a reverential relationship — not just as a resource for food and livelihood, but also for spiritual fulfillment.
- The rituals also help ensure that the bounty of harvests is shared among all members of the community, even those who have experienced a poor yield.

Deforestation wanes in Indonesia’s Aceh and Leuser Ecosystem, but threats remain, NGO says
- Deforestation in Indonesia’s Aceh province last year fell 18 percent from 2016 — a trend activists attribute to better law enforcement and intensified campaigning about the importance of protecting the unique Leuser Ecosystem.
- Another factor is a government moratorium on oil palm planters clearing peatlands, but this hasn’t stopped many such operators from acting with impunity.
- Activists worry that future threats will come from road projects and planned hydropower and geothermal plants.

Indonesian palm, pulp companies commit to peatland restoration
- Some 125 palm oil and pulp companies have committed to restoring a combined 14,000 square kilometers (5,400 square miles) of degraded peatlands that fall within their leases over the next eight years.
- The move is part of government-driven efforts to prevent a repeat of the massive land and forest fires that flared up in 2015, largely as a result of peatlands being drained for planting and rendered highly combustible.
- At the heart of the rehabilitation work is the extensive blocking of drainage canals, which aims to restore moisture to the peat soil.

Is a plantation a forest? Indonesia says yes, as it touts a drop in deforestation
- Indonesia has reported a second straight year of declining deforestation, and credited more stringent land management policies for the trend.
- However, the government’s insistence on counting pulpwood plantations as reforested areas has once again sparked controversy over how the very concept of a forest should be defined.
- Researchers caution that the disparity between Indonesia’s methodology and the standard more commonly used elsewhere could make it difficult for the government to qualify for funding to mitigate carbon emissions from deforestation.

Indonesia prepares to adopt standardized peat-mapping technology
- The winner of a competition announced in 2016 to come up with a fast, accurate and cost-effective method to map Indonesia’s vast tropical peatlands will be announced on Feb. 2.
- The government currently lacks an authoritative map of its carbon-rich peat areas, which it urgently needs to enforce a policy of conserving existing peatlands and rehabilitating degraded areas.
- The country’s peatlands are important as stores of greenhouse gases and habitats for endangered species; but their drainage and deforestation, mostly for oil palm plantations, has made Indonesia one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters and contributed to loss of wildlife habitat.

Indonesian ruling rings alarms over criminalization of environmental defenders
- A court in Indonesia has sentenced an anti-mine activist to 10 months in jail on a rarely used charge of promoting communism.
- The ruling is just the latest in a series of controversial prosecutions of environmental activists and protesters based on draconian or obscure laws, which critics say is meant to silence dissent against politically connected developers.
- The environment ministry says it wants fewer cases going to court, but activists say the biggest perpetrators of what they deem the criminalization of criticism are the police and district attorneys.

Biofuel boost threatens even greater deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia: Study
- A new report projects the global demand for palm oil-based biofuel by 2030 will be six times higher than today if existing and proposed policies in Indonesia, China and the aviation industry hold.
- That surge in demand could result in the clearing of 45,000 square kilometers (17,374 square miles) of forest in Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s biggest palm oil producers, and the release of an additional 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions a year — higher than current annual emissions by the U.S.
- That impact could be tempered to some degree by the European Union, which plans to phase out all use of palm oil in its biofuel over the next three years, citing environmental concerns.

Legal recognition in the works for communities occupying Indonesia’s conservation areas
- The Indonesian government plans to formally recognize the occupation and use of land inside conservation areas, including national parks, by local and indigenous communities.
- The program will grant these communities access to clearly defined areas within these conservation zones, in exchange for managing these areas responsibly and sustainably, and not expanding their encroachment.
- However, the program could clash with a 2017 presidential regulation that emphasizes resettlement as a solution to human encroachment in conservation areas.

Outrage and conspiracy claims as Indonesia, Malaysia react to EU ban on palm oil in biofuels
- Indonesian and Malaysian ministers have derided as unfair and misguided the European Parliament’s vote to approve the phase-out of palm oil from biofuels by 2021.
- The vote Wednesday, over concerns about the environmental and social impacts of the palm oil industry, still needs to be ratified by the European Commission and member governments.
- Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have filed official notes of protest, claiming a protectionist conspiracy to promote other vegetable oil producers, but activists say the EU’s concerns, including about deforestation, are valid and the ban justified.

Indonesian villages see virtually zero progress in program to manage peatlands
- Only one out of nearly 3,000 villages located in Indonesia’s peatlands has received a government permit to manage the forest under the administration’s “social forestry” program.
- At the same time, 80 percent of peatlands in key areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan fall within plantation and mining concessions.
- Activists have called on the government to speed up the process of granting permits to villages, arguing that they make better forest stewards than plantation operators.
- The government has acknowledged the slow pace of progress and accordingly cut its target for the total area of forest reallocated to local communities to a third of the initial figure.

Indonesian parliament pushes for passage of palm oil legislation this year
- Indonesian legislators have prioritized deliberations of a bill regulating the country’s palm oil industry, hoping to have it passed this year.
- The bill in its current form conflicts with the government’s own recently adopted measures to protect peatlands, a point that legislators have acknowledged must be addressed.
- While its proponents say the bill is needed to protect the industry, citing a Western conspiracy against Indonesian palm oil, environmental activists say it will do little to address the ills attributed to the industry.

Study on economic loss from Indonesia’s peat policies criticized
- A recent study estimates that Indonesia’s various peat-protection policies could lead to $5.7 billion in economic losses.
- Those losses arise mainly from the pulp and palm oil industries, which are now obliged to conserve and restore peatlands that fall within their concessions.
- Researchers and officials have criticized the study, saying it fails to make a holistic accounting of the environmental, social, health and climate costs from the continued destruction of carbon-rich peat areas.
- They warn the study’s findings could be used to undermine policies aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2015 fires that cost Indonesia an estimated $16 billion from economic disruption.

In early push into Papua, palm oil firms set stage for massive forest plunder
- Large-scale deforestation and a high number of hotspots indicate that the arrival of the oil palm industry in Indonesia’s Papua region is wreaking the same kind of destruction wrought on forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
- A new report calls the scale of the problem alarming, with the potential for even greater losses as only a small fraction of the forests issued for oil palm plantations has been cleared.
- The palm oil industry’s push into the region, after nearly depleting forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan, has been helped by government programs to boost investment in Papua.

Indonesia unveils plan to halve forest fires by 2019
- The Indonesian government has launched a plan to cut down land and forest fire hotspots by nearly half, in part by protecting peat forests.
- The program, which calls for $2.73 billion in funding, aims to ensure that 121,000 square kilometers of land, a fifth of it peat forest, will be fire-free by 2019.
- The move comes as the government anticipates drier weather conditions than usual next year in perennial hotspot regions like West Kalimantan.

Paper giant RAPP bows to peat-protection order after Indonesia court defeat
- A court has invalidated a bid by Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) to overturn a government order obliging it to conserve peatlands that fall within its concessions.
- The ruling means the company will have to submit revised work plans to the government, in which peat areas that it had previously earmarked for development would be conserved and rewetted to prevent fires.
- The government has also mulled the possibility of auditing RAPP and parent company APRIL to get a clearer picture of their operations on the ground.

Palm oil’s ecological footprint extends to distant forests, study finds
- A new study has found that the ecological footprint of oil palm plantations on neighboring forests extends beyond just deforestation and is “substantially underestimated.”
- This is based on the discovery of the extensive damage done to forest understory by wild boars that feed on the palm fruit.
- The damage was found to persist more than a kilometer away from oil palm plantations, leading the researchers to call for the establishment of buffer zones as a way to address the problem.

For indigenous kids in Indonesian Borneo, an early start to forest stewardship
- A Dayak indigenous tribe in Indonesian Borneo has been campaigning for years to protect its forest, its main source of food and sustenance.
- A competition by an NGO hopes to impress upon the village’s children the importance of the forest to the community, through an understanding of where its food comes from.
- After fending off plantation and mining interests, the villagers have won recognition for their land rights from the district administration and are now awaiting acknowledgement from Jakarta.

Locals fear for their lives over planned dam in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem
- Plans to build a hydroelectric power plant in northern Sumatra call for the flooding of large swath of the Leuser Ecosystem, an ecological hotspot home to critically endangered tigers, rhinos and orangutans.
- For residents, the fear is that the dam, to be built in a geologically unstable area, will collapse.
- Local communities reliant on fishing also worry that the damming of rivers to fill the reservoir will hurt their livelihoods.

Global tropical peatland center to be established in Indonesia
- A tropical peatland center will be established in Indonesia’s city of Bogor soon.
- The Indonesian government will discuss the detail of the establishment next year.
- Indonesia said other countries could learn much from its experiences in managing peatlands and dealing with recurring peat fires.

Climate scientists see silver lining in Bali volcano’s ash cloud
- Scientists are monitoring the emission of sulfur dioxide from the ongoing eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Agung to better understand the climate-cooling effects of the particulate’s dispersal in the stratosphere.
- They hope that by artificially recreating the phenomenon, they can block the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface, and thereby “geoengineer” a cooler climate.
- However, progress in geoengineering is tempered by worries that the prospect of an easy solution could leave policymakers even more reluctant to make meaningful efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Labor abuses persist in RSPO-certified palm plantations, report finds
- A new report exposes labor abuses on three plantations owned by Indofood, a subsidiary of the Salim Group conglomerate.
- The report reveals how workers are routinely exposed to hazardous pesticides, paid less than the minimum wage, illegally kept in a temporary work status to fill core jobs, and deterred from forming independent labor unions.
- Each of the three plantations has been certified as “sustainable” by the RSPO, which bans labor abuses by its members, but is often criticized for failing to enforce its own standards.
- Advocates have been pushing for the RSPO to improve its handling of labor issues.

Indonesia to kick off 10-year plan to save critically endangered helmeted hornbill
- The Indonesian government is currently drafting a 10-year master plan to protect the endangered helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), set to be launched in 2018.
- The program will comprise five action plans: research and monitoring; policies and law enforcement; partnerships; raising public awareness; and funding.
- The helmeted hornbill has been driven to the brink of extinction by poaching for its distinctive scarlet casqued beak, which is pound-for-pound three times as valuable as elephant ivory.

As Indonesia pushes flagship land reform program, farmers remain wary
- Under a flagship agrarian reform program, the Indonesian government aims to give indigenous and other rural communities greater control over 127,000 square kilometers of land.
- President Joko Widodo earlier this month handed out 35-year land leases to farmers across Java as part of the social forestry program.
- The farmers, however, are concerned about the sustainability of the program, citing worries about getting bank loans, as well as a lack of maps and planning.

Government revokes 406 mining permits in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan
- Local authorities have revoked 406 coal-mining permits in East Kalimantan province, with another 403 permits to be revoked in the future.
- East Kalimantan is the heart of Indonesia’s coal-mining industry, with over half of the province’s land area allocated for mining concessions.
- The revocation is a part of a nationwide effort to stamp out irregularities in the the country’s mining sector, which has long been plagued by corruption, legal violations, and environmental and social damage.

Indonesia tries to learn from Brazil’s success in REDD+
- Indonesia and Brazil both have billion-dollar REDD+ agreements with Norway to reduce deforestation and cut carbon emissions in exchange for funding.
- While Brazil has succeeded, Indonesia has not, and has even seen deforestation rates climb, surpassing those in Brazil.
- Fundamental differences in the way the two countries deal with forest issues, particularly in law enforcement and land reform, help explain their different outcomes.
- The Indonesian government hopes to breathe new life into its flagging REDD+ program by emulating the Brazilian model, and speed up the disbursal of funds from Norway by next year.

Indonesia races against time to save new orangutan species
- With an estimated population of less than 800, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan is already at risk of extinction due to habitat destruction and fragmentation.
- The Indonesian government will come up with a strategy to protect the orangutan, including the establishment of protected forest areas and wildlife sanctuaries.
- The government will also review a plan to build a hydroelectric plant in an area with the highest known density of Tapanuli orangutans.

Indonesian Supreme Court strikes down regulation on peat protection
- Indonesia’s Supreme Court has quashed a ministerial regulation obliging forestry companies to relinquish and protect carbon-rich concessions in protected peat areas.
- The regulation was part of a package of new rules meant to prevent a recurrence of the annual fires that burn across Indonesia’s vast peat swamp zones.
- Businesses, labor unions and politicians had expressed concern over the regulation, saying that it would result in loss of productivity and massive layoffs.
- The government says the court ruling will not hamper the nation’s efforts to protect its peatlands.

Sumatran region heats up as forests disappear
- Average temperatures in the Indonesian province of Jambi have risen amid clearing of vast swaths of forest, a new study show.
- Areas that have been clear-cut, mostly for oil palm plantations, can be up to 10 degrees Celsius hotter than forested areas.
- The warming could make water more scarce and wildfires more common in the province.

Economic headwinds buffet once-resilient Sumatran forest-farms
- Farmers in Indonesia’s Krui region have long cultivated valuable damar resin trees among typical crops such as coconuts and rice.
- These agroforests have for more than a century served as an economic bulwark for local communities against the encroachment of palm oil and timber operations.
- Since 2000, however, a fifth of the region’s damar agroforests have been razed for sawmills and oil palm plantations, with land grabs and low resin prices driving the decline.

Indonesia to miss carbon emissions target under existing climate policies: study
- Unless Indonesia takes more drastic measures, it will miss the emission reduction target it has set for itself.
- Current policies are a decent starting point, but they could be strengthened to meet or even surpass the emissions-reduction target.
- The best thing Indonesia can do is strengthen forest licensing moratorium, which has done little to curb deforestation in off-limits areas.

Grasberg mine’s riches still a distant glitter for Papuan communities
- Through its local subsidiary, US-based Freeport-McMoRan operates the world’s largest and most profitable gold mine in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- Changes to Indonesia’s mining laws earlier this year raised hopes that Papua’s indigenous people might finally get a stake in the mine.
- With negotiations between the government and the company snagging on key issues, activists say these hopes may be premature.

‘Queen of Coal’ named corruption suspect in Indonesia
- Rita Widyasari was named suspect by Indonesia’s antigraft body earlier this month.
- She was alleged to accept a a 6 billion rupiah ($442,000) bribe from plantation businessman Hari Susanto Gun.
- The head of Kutai Kartanegara district in East Kalimantan is often dubbed the “queen of coal” given the number of mining permits she has issued.

Mining project in Leuser Ecosystem no longer has a valid permit
- The mining permit of a company engaged in a long-running conflict with Aceh villagers has expired.
- Because the company failed to file paperwork on time, the Indonesian government has rejected the company’s request to extend the permit.
- Without a permit, the company cannot legally continue to operate in its concession.

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