location: Jambi

location: Jambi

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Sumatra community school hands down ancient knowledge to modern generation
- A community near an ancient Buddhist archaeological site on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island has established a voluntary school to teach young people history and culture that dates back centuries.
- The curriculum includes the identification and application of medicinal plants used for generations by traditional healers like Mbok Hawo, a healer in her 60s.
- The founders of the school told Mongabay that the idea for the initiative sprang from worry that changes in society threatened to eclipse cultural heritage, and that preserving this ancient knowledge remained vital to local identity in Muaro Jambi.

Analysis: Michelin’s no-deforestation claims in Indonesia rubber plantation a stretch
- Rubber manufacturer Michelin claims to have avoided millions of tons of carbon emissions and saved thousands of hectares of primary forest in a sustainable rubber plantation project in Indonesia.
- Michelin joined the project in 2014 after buying a stake in the Indonesian rubber company RLU, which in 2018 raised $95 million in green bonds. In 2022, Michelin became RLU’s sole shareholder, and repaid the green bonds raised by the project.
- Reporting by independent media outlet Voxeurop, published in 2022, revealed that deforestation in the RLU concession surged immediately before the company made no-deforestation commitments in 2015, resulting in the loss of critical wildlife habitat.
- In this analysis, Voxeurop reporter Stefano Valentino looks at what has happened with the project since Michelin made its no-deforestation commitments, finding ongoing loss of forest within the company’s concessions.

Desperation sets in for Indigenous Sumatrans who lost their forests to plantations
- The seminomadic Suku Anak Dalam Indigenous people have lived in two areas of what is now Jambi province on Indonesia’s Sumatra island for generations, but an influx of plantation interests has shrunk the customary territory available to their society.
- More than 2,000 Suku Anak Dalam have lost their land to oil palm and rubber plantations, which have also led to a loss of the native trees from which community members collect forest honey to sell.
- Several Suku Anak Dalam interviewees said state-owned rubber plantation company PT Alam Lestari Nusantara had failed to properly compensate them for their land.
- The company did not respond to several requests for comment.

Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop
- A new Greenpeace report alleges that pulp and paper giant APP continues to clear forests and develop peatlands 10 years after adopting its landmark 2013 pledge to stop destroying natural forests for its plantations.
- The report identifies 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of deforestation in APP supplier concessions or companies connected to APP between February 2013 and 2022 — an area the size of New York City.
- APP has also changed the start date of its no-deforestation policy from 2013 to 2020, which would allow the company at some point in the future to accept new suppliers that deforested between 2013 and 2020.
- APP denies allegations of continued deforestation and says its suppliers have ceased forest conversions since 2013; the company also says it has committed to peatland restoration.

In Sumatra’s Jambi, community forest managers fish to protect peatlands
- A community in Indonesia’s Jambi province has resorted to fish farming to raise money for its efforts to prevent wildfires in the community.
- In 2015, around 80% of the province’s peat forest was damaged during the Southeast Asia wildfire crisis.
- Jambi-based nonprofit KKI Warsi cites the number of peatland canals as the greatest barrier to replenishing the wetland.

Elephant encounters rattle farmers in Indonesia’s Jambi province
- On the island of Sumatra, oil palm farmers blame a pair of translocated elephants for a rampage they say caused the worst damage to their crops in a decade.
- The two bull elephants were translocated in an effort to get them to breed with local females.
- Only 924-1,359 elephants are thought to remain in the wilds of Sumatra, a decline of more than half over a decade prior.

Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
- A group of locals have since 2013 tried to clean up the trash pooling in Lake Sipin in the Sumatran province of Jambi.
- Their efforts have received national attention, with their leader, Leni Haini, awarded the country’s highest environmental award in 2022 by the government.
- Indonesia has announced a plan to restore 15 lakes (Sipin isn’t included) across the country by 2024, citing their high degree of degradation, chiefly sedimentation, which has resulted in their rapid shrinking and a decline in the biodiversity they host.
- These lakes are crucial in supporting the livelihoods of millions of Indonesians, serving as a source of freshwater, a form of flood control, and a site for fish-farming and tourism.

Cycling oil palm biomass waste back into the soil can boost soil health, study says
- Oil palm growers in Indonesia can boost soil health and reduce their fertilizer use by adding waste biomass back to the soil, a new study says.
- Biomass such as pruned palm fronds and empty fruit bunches that have already been milled for their oil are rich in silicon, an important element in healthy oil palm plantations.
- Large palm oil companies already practice some form of this biomass cycling, but the high cost and effort means smallholder farmers are missing out on the benefits.
- There are 15 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, with harvests taking place twice a week, which translates into an immense amount of biomass removal — and thus loss of silicon.

Trapping holds back speed of bird recovery in a Sumatran forest, study shows
- A decade of protection and natural regeneration of tropical forests has helped bird populations increase in the southern lowlands of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, a new study says.
- However, it adds that continued wild trapping is preventing the reforestation effort from achieving its greatest results.
- The Harapan Forest, which straddles the provinces of Jambi and South Sumatra, in 2007 became the site of Indonesia’s first ecosystem restoration concession to recover biodiversity in the region after commercial selective logging ceased in 2005.
- Since 2004, Indonesia has awarded 16 licenses for ecosystem restoration concessions, including for the Harapan Forest, covering an area of 623,075 hectares (1.54 million acres) in Sumatra and Borneo, according to 2018 government data.

Sumatran conservationist Rahmad Saleh Simbolon dies at 47
- The head of the conservation agency in Jambi province, Indonesia, died of a heart attack on Aug. 9.
- After working in protected forest areas in South and North Sumatra provinces, Rahmad oversaw several accomplishments in a province home to numerous threatened species.
- Jambi lost more than a third of its old-growth forest between 2002 and 2021.

A conservation failure in Sumatra serves a cautionary tale for PES schemes
- A World Bank-funded conservation project in Indonesia led to higher rates of deforestation after the project ended, a new study shows, serving as a cautionary tale about the risks of failing to sustain such initiatives over a long enough time period.
- The payment for ecosystem services project was supposed to reward villages for halting deforestation and taking up sustainable livelihoods from 1996-2001.
- In the years after the project ended, however, participating villages that had received the payments lost up to 26% more forest cover from 2000-2016 than non-participating villages, the study shows.

Draining tropical peatlands for oil palms isn’t just bad — it’s unnecessary, study shows
- Oil palms growing in rewetted peatlands show no decline in palm fruit yields compared to those in drained peatlands, a new study shows.
- This debunks the long-held thinking in the palm oil industry that draining the carbon-rich peat soil is necessary to maintain yields on peatlands.
- Instead, rewetting peatlands should have net positive effects for smallholders by reducing the risk of fires that can damage property, plantations and human health.
- The study also finds that conserving peatland forests supports bird biodiversity, as a richer variety of bird life is found in peat forests than in adjacent oil palm plantations.

Saving medicinal plants a village cause in Indonesia
- Residents of the Sumatran village of Muara Jambi are working to preserve their ancient practice of cultivating and using medicinal plants.
- The village is also home to an ancient Buddhist temple complex that may be linked to the medicinal plant tradition, but some fear government plans to restore the site could threaten the plants growing there.
- Other threats come from oil palm plantations and coal mines operating nearby.

Starving and injured Sumatran tiger dies in captivity, Indonesian officials report
- A severely injured and emaciated Sumatran tiger has died in captivity after being captured from the wild, Indonesian conservation authorities reported.
- The adult female tiger was caught following a series of deadly tiger attacks on villagers living near Kerinci Seblat National Park.
- Conservation authorities speculate an outbreak of African swine fever that has affected the area’s population of wild boars likely forced the tigers to roam farther from the forests and into human settlements in search of food.
- Fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild, with the big cat’s population plunging in line with widespread destruction of its forest habitat, primarily due to logging and expanding oil palm and pulpwood plantations.

Paper giants’ expansion plans raise fears of greater deforestation in Indonesia
- Two paper giants, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), plan to significantly expand their production capacity in Indonesia.
- Activists warn that these plans could lead to increased deforestation of natural forest and peatlands in Indonesia to plant the pulpwood trees needed to meet this capacity, exacerbating the annual fire season.
- They say the projects are benefiting from the Indonesian government’s deregulation initiative that strips away environmental and social protections across a wide swath of industries, including pulp and paper.
- In response to the expansion plans, a coalition of 33 NGOs has sent a letter to APP’s financiers and buyers, asking them to refrain from doing business with the company.

Build around the forest, not through it, study says of Sumatra trucking road
- Researchers have identified alternative routes for a planned mining road that will cut through the Harapan forest, the largest surviving tract of lowland tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- The alternative routes will avoid thousands of hectares of forest loss as they skirt the main forest block while traversing nearby lands that are largely deforested.
- They are also potentially cheaper than the routes planned by coal miner PT Marga Bara Jaya (MBJ) because they utilize existing road networks and improve them.
- Local environmental activists have identified similar alternative routes, but the fact that the company is proposing a more destructive path points to a lack of will to minimize deforestation, poor planning, or a deliberate attempt to cut through the middle of the forest, researchers say.

Indonesian pulpwood firms told to protect peat are doing the opposite: Report
- Pulpwood companies in Indonesia are continuing to plant on degraded peatlands inside their concessions, despite being required to protect and restore these ecosystems, a new report shows.
- The report focuses on 16 pulp and paper producers and found all of them in violation of peat protection and rehabilitation regulations.
- Among the violations are planting and harvesting acacia trees in previously burned peatlands, and digging new canals to drain peatland.
- Among the companies highlighted in the report are subsidiaries of two of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world, APP and APRIL.

‘Hungry’ palm oil, pulpwood firms behind Indonesia land-grab spike: Report
- Land conflicts in Indonesia escalated in 2020, with palm oil and pulpwood companies taking advantage of movement restrictions to expand aggressively, according to a new report.
- These disputes have historically waned during times of economic downturn, but last year’s increase was driven by “land-hungry” companies, according to the NGO Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA).
- Most of the conflicts involved palm oil and pulpwood companies, while infrastructure developments backed by the government were also a major contributor.

Planned coal-trucking road threatens a forest haven for Sumatran frogs
- The Harapan forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra is teeming with frog species, one of which was just described last year.
- These amphibians are threatened by a coal-trucking road that the government has approved to be built right through the forest.
- Environmental activists have pushed back against the project, calling on the government to either suspend the project or approve alternative routes that would bypass the forest altogether or cut through a less pristine portion of it.
- The local government has promised to study the project’s impact, but activists point out the final decision lies with the central government, which gave the approval and has still not addressed their concerns.

Coal stockpiles threaten public health, ancient temple, in Indonesian village
- For years, the residents of Muara Jambi village on the Indonesian island of Sumatra have had to breathe air polluted with coal dust from nearby storage facilities.
- The residents have complained of acute respiratory infections, and some have had coughs for months and have not yet recovered.
- The coal dust also threatens the Muaro Jambi temple complex, a Hindu-Buddhist compound constructed from the 7th-14th centuries and vulnerable to premature weathering because of the dust.
- To reduce the impact of coal dust, coal piles should not exceed 7 meters (23 feet) in height, but some piles in the area exceed 10 meters (33 feet). The local government says it is monitoring the situation.

Oil palm plantations in Sumatran watershed worsen flooding in communities
- The development of oil palm and rubber plantations in a watershed area of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island is exacerbating flooding for nearby communities, new research suggests.
- The multidisciplinary study finds that soil compaction on land cleared for planting reduces the ground’s capacity to absorb rainwater, leading to surface runoff that leads to flooding.
- The researchers also interviewed people living nearby, who blamed the drainage channels and dams built for the plantations for channeling runoff to their areas.
- The researchers call for soil protection and improved land-use planning to reduce the incidence and severity of flooding.

Indonesia approves coal road project through forest that hosts tigers, elephants
- The Indonesian government has granted permission to a coal company to build a road that would cut through the highly biodiverse Harapan forest in Sumatra.
- The road is for transporting coal from the company’s mine to power plants in South Sumatra province.
- Experts have called on the company to have the road skirt the forest and use an existing road network, but the company has not issued any revision of its design.
- Conservationists and indigenous communities have warned that the road could devastate the ecosystem, create more habitat fragmentation and facilitate further encroachment for logging, hunting and agriculture.

Calls for end to business with paper giant APP over Sumatra land disputes
- A coalition of 90 NGOs has published an open letter urging investors and buyers to stop doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest paper producers, in light of its ongoing disputes with communities in Sumatra.
- The letter was precipitated specifically by allegations that an APP subsidiary used a drone to spray herbicide on farms belonging to a community with which it’s locked in a land dispute.
- APP has denied wrongdoing in the incident, but activists say the move is just the latest in a campaign of intimidation mounted by the company.
- Another APP affiliate is involved in a similar dispute in another part of Sumatra, which led to the recent jailing of an indigenous farmer for planting food crops on land claimed by both parties.

Conflict between Indonesian villagers, pulpwood firm flares up over crop-killing drone
- Villagers in Sumatra allege that a pulpwood plantation company owned by forestry giant Asia Pulp & Paper has escalated a long-running land dispute by killing their crops and intimidating them.
- Residents of Lubuk Mandarsah say PT Wirakarya Sakti (WKS) used a drone to spray herbicide on their rubber and oil palm trees, and sent security officials door to door to scare villagers into leaving the area.
- The villagers and WKS have since 2007 been embroiled in a dispute over 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) of land in Sumatra’s Jambi province that both claim.
- Tensions between the two hit breaking point in 2015 when WKS security guards killed a villager during an altercation.

As Indonesia fights COVID-19, warmer temperatures drive up dengue cases
- Dengue fever has been on the rise in Indonesia this year, even as the country focuses on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Experts have attributed the increase to warmer average temperatures and unsanitary conditions that allow the mosquitoes carrying the virus to thrive.
- Authorities have ordered fumigation drives in response to the outbreak, but health experts warn the mosquitoes are developing a resistance to the insecticides used.

In Sumatra, an indigenous plea to stop a coal road carving up a forest
- Teguh Santika, an indigenous Batin Sembilan woman in Sumatra, has called on the Indonesian government to reject a proposal by a coal miner to build a road that cuts through the Harapan forest where her community lives.
- Miner PT Marga Bara Jaya has since 2017 sought approval to build the road from its mine to a power plant; local authorities support the plan, but it still needs the approval of the environment ministry.
- A third of the 88-kilometer (55-mile) road will slice through the Harapan forest, which is home to threatened species such as the Sumatran tiger.
- The Batin Sembilan have for years been part of an initiative to restore the forest, which was previously a logging concession, and crack down on encroachment by oil palm farmers, illegal loggers and poachers.

Coronavirus, trawls take a toll on shrimp fishery in Indonesia’s Jambi
- The Indonesian government has temporarily restricted trade with China in the wake of the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease,
- The move has hit the shrimp-fishing community in Sumatra’s Jambi province, which is highly reliant on the Chinese market.
- The fishermen say they’ll need government assistance to switch to other fisheries, having already invested heavily in shrimping gear.
- They’ve also called for a crackdown on trawl fishers operating in their waters.

Indonesian palm oil firm hit with $1.8m fine for 2015 fires
- Indonesia’s environment ministry has won a long-awaited court judgment and $1.8 million fine from a palm oil company that experienced fires on its concession in 2015.
- The company, PT Kaswari Unggul, had challenged the initial administrative sanctions issued in the wake of the burning, and continued to stonewall against the ministry’s efforts to hold it responsible for the burning.
- Ironically, the company’s resistance to the sanctions, which would have compelled it to introduce fire-prevention measures on its land, may have contributed to fires flaring up on the same concession again this year.
- The ministry has welcomed the recent judgment, but has yet to collect on any of the combined $224 million it’s been awarded in similar cases, thanks to legal stonewalling and a Byzantine court bureaucracy.

Photos: Forest fires rage on Sumatra oil palm concessions
- As Indonesia’s annual fire season gets underway, swaths of carbon-rich peat forests are being razed, and the subsequent toxic smoke has blanketed parts of Jambi province on the island of Sumatra.
- Dozens of hotspots have been detected on farmland, oi palm concessions, and even inside a protected peat forest in the province, according to the local disaster management agency.
- Mongabay visited one of the burning concessions, where minimally equipped workers are fighting to put out fires that have been burning for days without end.
- The workers deny that the oil palm company set the fire on the concession, claiming it started in a neighboring village. In 2015, three company employees were charged with setting fires on the same concession, though none were ever convicted.

A tiger refuge in Sumatra gets a reprieve from road building
- Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra (TRHS), which has been inscribed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger since 2011.
- UNESCO has noted particular concern about a spate of road projects planned for Kerinci Seblat and other protected areas within the TRHS.
- According to park officials, Indonesia’s forestry ministry has refused permits for all new roads within the park; the sole project to receive permission is the upgrade of an existing road.
- The park still faces immense pressure from encroachment for agriculture, logging, mining and poaching.

A forest beset by oil palms, logging, now contends with a coal-trucking road
- The Harapan forest in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, faces threats from illegal logging, encroachment by oil palm growers, poaching of its wildlife, and the loss of funding for conservation initiatives.
- An indigenous community, conservation managers and activists have highlighted another danger that risks fragmenting the biodiverse lowland rainforest: a coal-trucking road that would slice through the area.
- Local authorities reviewing the project proposal have called on the company behind it to consider a road that skirts the forest instead, but the company has not yet published a revised plan.
- The forest’s Batin Sembilan indigenous group says the creation of a road will increase access into the forest, exacerbating long-simmering tensions with migrant communities they accuse of trying to grab the land.

In Sumatra, a lone elephant leads rescuers on a cat-and-mouse chase
- Conservationists recently tried to relocate a wild elephant from one forest on the island of Sumatra to another.
- The elephant’s original home, the Bukit Tigapuluh forest, has been heavily fragmented by human activity, pushing the animals within into nearby villages.
- The elephant, a female named Karina, is the last remaining member of her herd.

End of funding dims hopes for a Sumatran forest targeted by palm oil growers
- The Harapan lowland rainforest in Sumatra, one of only 36 global biodiversity hotspots, could be lost to oil palm plantations within the next five years.
- The Danish government, which since 2011 has funded efforts to restore the forest and keep out encroaching farmers, will cease its funding at the end of this year. No other sources of funding are in sight to fill the gap.
- The Danish ambassador to Indonesia says local authorities need to take on more of the responsibility of protecting the forest.
- He says relying on donor funding is unsustainable over the long term, and has called for greater emphasis on developing ecotourism and trade in non-timber forest products.

In Sumatra, villagers blame a coal mine for cracks in their houses, and their community
- Residents of Padang Birau village in Indonesia’s Jambi province say a nearby coal mine has led to social and environmental problems, and is disrupting their lives.
- Villagers say their houses have been damaged and their sleep interrupted since a mine road began operation, requiring frequent maintenance from a vibrating roller. They also point to air and water pollution from coal dust.
- Other area residents support the mine, particularly people who work as delivery drivers for the mining company.

Indonesia turns to green finance for development projects
- Indonesia, one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is turning to green finance markets to fund new development projects it promises will be both environmentally and socially friendly.
- In issuing these ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ bonds, Indonesia joins a growing number of developing countries seeking to appeal to ecologically and socially conscious international investors.
- But critics question just how green and sustainable these bonds really are, highlighting concerns about greenwashing.

Coal mine diverts Sumatran river without a permit, leaving villagers short of clean water
- Since coal mining company PT Seluma Prima Coal set up operations in 2015, residents of Rangkiling Bakti village in Jambi, Sumatra say they have suffered from a lack of clean water as well as from landslides and flooding.
- Although a permit to do so is still being processed, PT SPC and its partners have diverted the course of Sungumai River, which runs through their concession.
- The company has drilled wells and promised other social initiatives, but area residents have continued to protest, calling for more compensation and for legal measures to be taken against the company.

Study puts a figure to hidden cost of community-company conflict in palm oil industry
- Two studies have revealed the extraordinary costs of social conflicts between local communities and palm oil firms in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the vegetable oil.
- One study found that more than half of local household expenditure at present was going on things they would have obtained for free in the past, such as water and fruits, from the forests that were cleared to make way for palm plantations.
- The other study highlighted the hidden burden of these same conflicts on the companies, amounting to millions of dollars in tangible and intangible costs, including reputational damage.

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.

‘Give us back our land’: paper giants struggle to resolve conflicts with communities in Sumatra
- Plantation firms like Asia Pulp & Paper and Toba Pulp Lestari have a long history of land grabbing, often dating back to the New Order military dictatorship. More recently, they have pledged to eliminate the practice from their supply chains.
- Many of the conflicts remain unaddressed. The companies say they are working hard to resolve them.
- A new online platform launched by the Rainforest Action Network shows that communities are still suffering the impacts of having their traditional forests and lands seized to make way for plantations.

Indonesian tiger smugglers escape with light sentences in Sumatra
- The two men were each sentenced to eight months imprisonment in Jambi province.
- Conservationists said the prosecutor should have demanded a harsher punishment.
- The maximum sentence under the 1990 Conservation Law is five years behind bars, and activists are pushing for that to be revised upward, too.
- Last year several tiger part smugglers were sentenced to three years imprisonment and fined 50 million rupiah.

New genus created for arboreal toads in Indonesia
- The proposed genus was created to fit two new species of toad.
- The name of the genus, Sigalegalephrynus, was inspired by the toads’ resemblance to a wooden puppet from North Sumatra.
- The toads appear to have mating calls that are unlike those of other amphibians in the Sunda Shelf.

Laws alone don’t stop companies from abandoning deadly mine pits in Indonesia
- Indonesian law requires resource extraction companies to manage and pay for post-mining reclamation.
- The law is poorly enforced, and many coal mining sites are abandoned without reclamation or even basic safety precautions.
- Officials say they lack the resources to tackle the problem effectively.
- Twenty-five children have died in abandoned mining pits in Indonesia.

Indonesian police arrest hundreds in connection to burning land
- Indonesia’s top cop on Thursday said the police had arrested 454 individuals over the fires now spreading in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
- The environment minister called on police to “investigate thoroughly” for any links to companies and local government officials.
- Local authorities in some haze-hit areas were assembling makeshift shelters as a precautionary measure to care for people with health problems.

Fires begin to appear en masse as Indonesia’s burning season gets going
- Nearly 300 hotspots were detected over Sumatra and Kalimantan on Monday.
- By Wednesday, that number had dropped somewhat, though authorities said they expected the fires to increase as Indonesia enters the dry season.
- Police in Riau arrested a man for burning a small plot of land, while the NGO Walhi said authorities should focus on burning by large companies.

Indonesia’s antigraft agency strives to rein in the mining sector
- Indonesia’s anticorruption agency has become involved in a number of initiatives to improve governance of natural resources in the archipelago.
- One such effort, focused on the mining sector, involves 12 provinces and has resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of permits.
- This initiative, known as Korsup Minerba, recently produced an assessment of the provinces’ progress in reining in the miners under their watch.

Norway pledges $50m to fund Indonesia’s peat restoration
- The pledge follows last year’s fire and haze disaster, which burned 2 million hectares of land, mostly peat, in the archipelago.
- The money will support the newly created Peat Restoration Agency.
- The U.S. government also pledged $17 million for peatland restoration in Indonesia’s Jambi province.

Scientists turn up haze heat on Indonesia ahead of COP21 Paris talks
- Singapore’s deputy prime minister Teo Chee Hean met with the Indonesian president in Jakarta on Wednesday.
- An indigenous group in South Sumatra called on the local government to restrict development in the Musi River basin.
- Fires continue to burn in Merauke regency in Papua, the archipelago’s easternmost province.

Riau emergency status to end as S. Sumatra pledges peat clampdown
- Indonesia’s Riau province will drop its official state of emergency at the end of the month.
- The South Sumatra provincial government pledged to stop the granting of licenses on peat.
- Central Kalimantan’s acting governor said the local government did not have adequate plans in place to mitigate the risks of fires.

Haze compensation to poor stalls as Indonesia spends on new palm oil cartel
- Rain has reduced the number of hotspots in Kalimantan and Sumatra but fires continue to rage in Papua and West Papua provinces in Indonesia’s east.
- Indonesia’s finance ministry has yet to approve a budget for cash payments to low-income families affected by the haze.
- Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to form a palm oil producers council.

VP Kalla fans flames in Manila as Indonesia presses on with water bombing
- Kalla made the exact same comments blaming foreign companies during a forestry summit in Jakarta in April.
- Satellite data from Global Forest Watch show more than 20 fires burning close to the mouths of the Lumpur and Mesuji rivers.
- Indonesian government water bombing operations continue to target smoldering peat fires in South Sumatra province.

From fires to floods: Indonesia’s disaster agency prepares for rain
- Singapore’s health ministry said it would end a government subsidy scheme for people in need of treatment from haze-related illnesses.
- Environmental pressure groups and NGOs met in Jakarta on Monday to discuss the government’s draft pledge to the UN climate summit.
- Researchers at King’s College London have been awarded a six-month grant by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Singapore calls end of haze this year as Indonesia continues to push peat plans
- The Indonesian government continues to work on enacting regulations to address the underlying causes of the annual fires.
- Vice president Jusuf Kalla said Indonesia would target 2-3 million hectares of peatland restoration by 2020.
- The government intends to form an agency for peatland restoration but has yet to decide on the specifics.

Jokowi turning over a new leaf for Indonesia on haze but details still foggy
- The president has ordered the damming of canals used to drain peat.
- Jokowi has yet to pass a presidential decree, known in Indonesia as a perppu, codifying these changes in law.
- Indonesia shipped a record 2.61 million metric tons of palm oil in October, with the month’s shipment to China rising 36%.

Many Indonesia fires smoulder but danger is far from over
- Visibility declined in South Sumatra despite recent rain.
- Indonesian military personnel have found evidence of illegal logging in South Sumatra province.
- The government of the Philippines has cautioned that haze could return amid typhoon season.

Indonesian NGO takes aim at government for failure to handle haze
- Indonesian police have named 265 suspects in connection with this year’s forest fires.
- A spokesperson for Indonesia’s environment and forestry ministry told the BBC on Monday that the government had been “desperately working” to tackle the situation.
- Kontras has also criticized the longstanding practice of identifying suspects by initials.

Jokowi pushes universities to innovate to fight haze as respiratory diseases rise
- Indonesia’s ministry of higher education is attempting to create a research consortium on disaster management.
- Data from Indonesia’s disaster management agency showed the number of people diagnosed with acute respiratory infection increased to 556,945 by November 6.
- After a limited cabinet meeting on Wednesday to discuss peat management, Jokowi said he wanted the research department of Yogyakarta’s University of Gadjah Mada to play a central role in proposing Indonesia’s new peat strategy.

APP pumps South Africa specialists to join haze fire fight
- Working on Fire’s managing director for Asia-Pacific expressed confidence fires on APP supplier concessions could be extinguished soon.
- The South African program has hundreds of additional firefighters on standby.
- An NGO said it had seen more sightings of raptors over East Java after a slow October migration east.

Privatized gain, socialized pain; Singapore foreign minister turns up heat on haze
- Indonesia’s meteorology agency, the BMKG, forecast rain over large parts of Indonesia on Wednesday but data at 6 a.m. showed a spike in hotspots to 200.
- Indonesian media reported on Wednesday that a one-year-old girl had died in Palembang from respiratory disease.
- Singapore foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan: “This is a classic example of privatizing the gain and socializing the pain.”

Indonesia breathes easier for now as haze recedes and rain falls
- Air quality in most parts of Indonesia was improved Tuesday with further rain forecast on Wednesday.
- Detectives in Central Kalimantan continued their investigation on Tuesday into a fire at the finance department of the provincial government.
- Plantation firm PT Bumi Mekar Hijau, a supplier of Asia Pulp & Paper, was due at a hearing on Tuesday to answer charges of culpability over fires on its concessions in Ogan Komering Ilir regency.

Police investigate new hotspot at govt office in Palangkaraya as ‘important’ documents go up in smoke
- Air quality in all but one Indonesian provincial capital was below harmful levels on Monday morning.
- Police are investigating a fire at the finance department of the Central Kalimantan government that destroyed “important” documents.
- Military and volunteer first responders continue to battle fires in Java after four people died in East Java last week.

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