topic: Oil Palm

topic: Oil Palm

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Critically endangered Sumatran elephant found dead near Leuser; cause uncertain

Sumatran elephant in North Sumatra Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Butler.

LANGKAT, Indonesia — A critically endangered Sumatran elephant was found dead April 4 on the border of the Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra’s Langkat district, officials said. The elephant was male, around 10 years old, and weighed no more than 2 tons. Officials said they believe the individual had been dead for several days […]
Indonesia raises concerns over EU deforestation law’s impact on smallholders
- The Indonesian government has raised concerns over the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), citing unclear due diligence rules, unrealistic expectations for smallholders, and contradictions in geolocation data requirements.
- Deputy Foreign Minister Arief Havas Oegroseno questioned the fairness of demanding geolocation data from Global South producers while EU privacy laws restrict similar data sharing within Europe.
- Arief also highlighted the EU’s inconsistent enforcement of past trade agreements like the FLEGT deal on timber, casting doubt on whether the EUDR will be applied fairly across member states.
- An EU envoy acknowledged some ambiguities but defended the EUDR’s goals, stressing that cooperation with Indonesia remains a priority despite stalled talks over data discrepancies.

Judges charged in Indonesian bribery scandal after clearing palm oil giants of corruption
- Four judges and two lawyers in Indonesia have been charged with transacting bribes to issue a favorable ruling for palm oil giants Permata Hijau, Wilmar and Musim Mas in a high-profile corruption case.
- Prosecutors allege that the companies funneled up to 60 billion rupiah ($3.57 million) to the judges through intermediaries, avoiding potential fines totaling more than $1 billion.
- The ruling controversially cleared the companies of prosecution despite their clear legal violations, using a colonial-era legal loophole.
- The case is part of a broader 2022 cooking oil export scandal that led to prior convictions of company executives and a trade ministry official, with Indonesia’s AGO now appealing the verdict and expanding its investigation.

Palm oil company uses armed forces, tear gas against protesting villagers in Cameroon
- Cameroonian villagers protesting on March 25 against plantation company Socapalm’s replanting of oil palm trees on disputed land were dispersed with tear gas by local law enforcement.
- Socapalm rejects the villagers’ claim that the company was supposed to return this land following an amendment to its lease, explaining that this part of the plantation is not leased.
- Gendarmes escorted Socapalm workers despite a local official’s previous statement that replanting required an agreement with villagers.
- Socfin, Socapalm’s parent company, has been accused of land grabbing and human rights abuses, with investigators confirming many community grievances at its Cameroon plantations.

Sumatran culinary heritage at risk as environment changes around Silk Road river
- Research shows that landscape changes across the Musi River Basin in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province risks food security across the river delta as fish stocks diminish and protein availability declines, including in the provincial capital, Palembang.
- Some fish traders and artisans in the city of 1.8 million worry culinary culture in Palembang is becoming endangered as rising sedimentation in the Musi River threatens the freshwater snakehead murrel fish.
- Reporting in March, during the fasting month of Ramadan, showed prices of food staples made from this fish increasing sharply from previous months as demand surged for fast-breaking events.

Indonesian watchdog demands prosecution for environmental crime ‘cartels’
- Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, has filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing 47 companies in the palm oil, mining and forestry sectors of corruption and environmental destruction, allegedly causing 437 trillion rupiah ($26.5 billion) in state losses.
- Walhi identified 18 forms of corruption, including government officials altering forest status to legalize deforestation, granting permits for illegal concessions, and accepting bribes to ignore violations.
- Notable examples include a palm oil company that allegedly cleared 1,706 hectares (4,215 acres) of forest in Aceh province before obtaining an environmental permit, and nickel mining in North Maluku that has devastated marine ecosystems.
- The AGO has confirmed receipt of Walhi’s complaint, and said that it will pursue allegations of corruption in those cases; however, it noted that any environmental violations would fall under the jurisdiction of other agencies.

Indonesian court blocks palm oil expansion, but leaves Indigenous land rights in limbo
- Indonesia’s Supreme Court has upheld the government’s decision to block further expansion of the Tanah Merah oil palm project in Papua, preserving a Jakarta-sized swath of primary rainforest.
- The ruling strengthens the forestry ministry’s authority to halt deforestation and was influenced by testimonies from the Indigenous Awyu tribe, who rely on the forest for survival.
- While the decision prevents further clearing, it doesn’t grant Indigenous land rights to the Awyu, leaving the tribe vulnerable to future displacement.
- Other companies are vying for control over concessions within the Tanah Merah project, fueling further conflicts and prompting Indigenous groups to seek formal land rights recognition.

UN accuses Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil firm of rights & environmental abuses
- United Nations special rapporteurs have singled out Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil company, PT Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), for alleged human rights violations and environmental degradation, marking the first time they’ve targeted a specific company rather than the industry as a whole.
- AAL and its subsidiaries are accused of operating without proper permits, seizing Indigenous and farming communities’ lands without consent, and suppressing protests with violence, intimidation and arrests, often with support from police and security forces.
- The Indonesian government has largely backed AAL’s operations, claiming compliance with legal standards, despite evidence that several subsidiaries lack necessary permits and continue operating illegally on disputed lands.
- Major brands like Kellogg’s, Hershey’s and Mondelēz have stopped sourcing palm oil from AAL, while global agribusiness giants like ADM, Bunge and Cargill still source from mills linked to the company, despite the ongoing allegations of rights abuses.

How ‘country palm’ could help pave the way toward a sustainable palm oil future in Liberia
- The oil palm tree is native to one of the largest contiguous blocks of lowland rainforest in West Africa, and provides food and habitat for many animals, including threatened species.
- Grown in agroforestry plots in concert with other plants, it’s been a subsistence crop for generations in Liberia, where it’s known as “country palm.”
- Initial field data from the Sustainable Oil Palm in West Africa (SOPWA) Project finds country palm plots have higher levels of plant species diversity compared to monoculture oil palm production systems.
- As Liberia rolls out plans to scale up its domestic palm oil production, conservationists and community leaders are calling for community-based country palm farming to be enshrined as a cornerstone of the country’s palm oil future — and not replaced by industrial, monoculture plantations.

Surge in legal land clearing pushes up Indonesia deforestation rate in 2024
- Indonesia’s deforestation increased in 2024 to its highest level since 2021, with forest area four times the size of Jakarta lost; 97% of this occurred within legal concessions, highlighting a shift from illegal to legal deforestation.
- More than half of the forest loss affected critical habitats for threatened species like orangutans, tigers and elephants, particularly in Borneo and Sumatra.
- Key industries driving deforestation include palm oil, pulpwood, and nickel mining, with significant deforestation in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua; a new pulp mill in Kalimantan in particular may be driving aggressive land clearing.
- Despite an existing moratorium on new forest-clearance permits, there’s no protection for forests within existing concessions, allowing continued deforestation, and spurring calls for stronger policies to safeguard remaining natural forests.

Coming to a retailer near you: Illegal palm oil from an orangutan haven
- A surge of deforestation for oil palm plantations in a Sumatran orangutan reserve means top consumer brands may be selling products with illegal oil palm in them, a new report says.
- Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says satellite imagery shows much of the deforestation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve occurred from 2021 onward.
- That means any palm oil produced from plantations established on land cleared during that time would be banned from entering the European market under the EU’s antideforestation regulation (EUDR).
- Brands such as Procter & Gamble and palm oil traders like Musim Mas have responded to the findings by dropping as suppliers the mills alleged to be processing palm fruit from the deforested areas.

Indonesian president says palm oil expansion won’t deforest because ‘oil palms have leaves’
- Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has called for the expansion of oil palm plantations, saying any criticism that this will cause deforestation is nonsense because oil palms are trees too.
- The remarks have prompted criticism that they go against the established science showing how plantations have driven deforestation, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.
- Experts have long called for the palm oil industry to improve yields at existing plantations rather than expand into forests and other ecosystems.
- But the main industry association has welcomed the president’s call, and even the Ministry of Forestry under Prabowo has changed its logo from a forest tree to something that resembles oil palm.

As Sumatra loses mangroves to oil palms, local fishers also suffer
- Interviews in Kwala Langkat, a fishing village in Indonesia’s Langkat district, along the Malacca Strait, suggest fisheries incomes have collapsed after local elites ripped out a mangrove ecosystem to establish a new oil palm plantation.
- In June, Mongabay reported that police had arrested three residents of Kwala Langkat village in connection with alleged criminal damage to a structure used on the oil palm plantation.
- More than a third of the world’s population today lives within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the coast, a more than 50% increase in absolute terms compared with 30 years ago.

Using regenerative agriculture to heal the land and help communities: Q&A with Kaleka founder Silvia Irawan
- Industrial oil palm cultivation is a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia and other tropical countries.
- Kalimantan’s Seruyan regency is one of the main palm oil-producing regions in Indonesia.
- Through regenerative agriculture trials in Seruyan, research organization Kaleka is trying to find ways for smallholders to cultivate oil palm more sustainably, without reducing their incomes.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Kaleka founder Silvia Irawan discusses the process, benefits and challenges of this approach.

New standard for ethical palm oil faces backlash before it’s even issued
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is expected to issue a new standard for its member companies to abide by when it holds its annual general meeting next week.
- The new standard, an update to the existing guidelines issued in 2018, brings improvements in environmental and social safeguards, according to the RSPO.
- But advocacy groups say it introduces loopholes that could allow for greater forest loss, including a new definition of what constitutes high-carbon stock forests, a dispensation for deforestation on Indigenous lands, and allowing deforestation as long as it’s compensated for.
- The RSPO has refuted these interpretations, saying the new standard is designed to be even more stringent than the current one and that undoing the progress it’s made would be “ill-advised.”

Indonesia investigates suspected corruption in palm oil amnesty program
- Indonesian prosecutors are investigating suspected corruption in the environment and forestry ministry’s management of oil palm plantations.
- Experts suspect the investigation targets a government program aimed at legalizing illegal oil palm plantations within forest areas and the potential underpayment of fines by companies that operate illegal plantations.
- A combined 3.37 million hectares (8.33 million acres) of oil palm plantations are considered illegal under Indonesian law because they were established on land zoned as forest areas.
- In 2020, the government introduced an amnesty scheme through a hugely controversial law that did away with criminal punishment for illegal plantations and their operators, and instead gave them a grace period of three years to obtain proper permits and official rezoning of their operational areas to non-forest areas; operators were also required to pay fines before they could resume operations, but the calculation used to determine those fines is under scrutiny.

DRC communities turn up heat on EU lenders funding palm oil giant PHC
- Communities living close to oil palm plantations run by PHC in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo are laying claim to just over 58,000 hectares (143,000 acres) of land, and are demanding access to the company’s land titles to determine the boundaries of its concessions.
- They accuse several European development banks, including Germany’s DEG, of having financially supported a PHC land grab in the DRC through $150 million in loans, in breach of their own loan agreement principles.
- Supported by a coalition of NGOs, an organization known as RIAO-RDC has written to a number of European Union governments calling for the suspension of the mediation process led by DEG’s Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM).
- PHC, which is embroiled in a leadership battle among its shareholders, has also been accused of financial malpractice, environmental crimes and human rights violations on its plantations, including arbitrary arrests and the detention of workers by the police.

Palm oil company fined for cheating; Sulawesi farmers to reap their due rupiah
- The Indonesian government has ordered palm oil company PT Hardaya Inti Plantations (HIP) to pay 1 billion rupiah ($61,000) in fines for violating Indonesian law by failing to pay farmers for harvests reaped from their land.
- In 2008, the farmers struck a deal with HIP in which the villagers would receive a cut of the company’s profits from palm fruit on the villagers’ land; this arrangement, known as plasma, is mandatory under Indonesian law.
- The farmer cooperative involved has accrued 8.8 billion rupiah ($543,000) in debt to state-owned lender Bank Mandiri.

Beleaguered Indonesian civil society gets lift in push for just energy transition
- The European Union has launched four projects in Indonesia aimed at empowering civil society organizations as they participate in determining the country’s clean energy transition.
- The projects include support for CSOs advocating for the rights of Indigenous groups, women and youths as pertains to Indonesia’s goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2060.
- The government is betting a large part of this transition on nickel as a key ingredient in batteries and other clean energy technology, but the mining and processing of the metal is wreaking environmental and social havoc on forests and communities.
- The effort to boost CSO participation comes as environmental and human rights defenders face an increasingly hostility and criminalization for criticizing government policies and projects.

Let’s reduce poverty & deforestation via greater EUDR traceability requirements (commentary)
- The traceability requirement at the heart of the E.U.’s new deforestation law can also help lift smallholder farmers around the world out of poverty, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Indonesia’s oil palm smallholders get a boost in bid for sustainability
- A new set of guidelines aims to help smallholder oil palm farmers in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil, ensure their products are deforestation-free.
- This would allow them a foothold in markets that are increasingly demanding, and requiring, sustainably produced goods.
- In particular, the smallholder toolkit aims to address the Indonesian government’s main grievance to a new European Union regulation prohibiting the import of deforestation-linked products, namely that smallholder farmers are least able to comply and will be affected the most.
- The toolkit could also contribute to Indonesia’s climate goals, by incentivizing smallholders to embrace more sustainable farming practices and choosing to conserve forests instead of clearing them.

Allegations widen against Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari
- Subsidiaries of Indonesia’s second-biggest palm oil company, PT Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), are running illegal plantations, grabbing community land, and intimidating critics, according to a new report by NGOs.
- The report is a follow-up to a 2022 report by Friends of the Earth, and identifies at least 1,100 hectares (2,718 acres) of the subsidiaries’ concessions that lie inside forest areas that should be off-limits to plantation activity.
- The NGOs also interviewed community members who say they weren’t consulted on the plantations in their midst and never gave their consent.
- The allegations of ongoing violations should prompt buyers of AAL’s palm oil and the financial institutions bankrolling its operations to put pressure on the company, FoE says.

Investigation confirms more abuses on Cameroon, Sierra Leone Socfin plantations
- Findings from a second round of investigations into allegations of human rights abuses on plantations owned by Belgian company Socfin have been published.
- Supply chain consultancy Earthworm Foundation found evidence of sexual violence and land conflict, following similar findings from other plantations in West and Central Africa published in December 2023.
- Around one plantation, in Sierra Leone, a mapping exercise may signal action to remedy some problems, but communities and their supporters elsewhere say it’s unclear how Socfin can be held to account.
- International NGOs point out that the findings are in conflict with Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications that Socfin holds.

#AllEyesonPapua goes viral to highlight threat to Indigenous forests from palm oil
- Two Indigenous tribes from Indonesia’s Papua region are calling for public support as the country’s Supreme Court hears their lawsuits against palm oil companies threatening to clear their ancestral forests.
- Large swaths of Awyu customary forest lie inside three oil palm concessions that are part of the Tanah Merah megaproject, in Boven Digoel district, while part of the forest of the Moi tribe falls within a concession in Sorong district.
- The cases now being heard mark the latest chapters in long-running legal battles by the tribes to prevent the concession holders from clearing the forests to make way for oil palms.
- Using the hashtag #AllEyesonPapua, in a nod to the #AllEyesonRafah campaign, the tribes and their supporters have gone viral with their cause as they seek to save the forests on which their livelihoods — and lives — depend.

Indonesian palm oil firm clashes with villagers it allegedly shortchanged
- At least nine villagers in Indonesia’s Buol district have been injured in clashes with workers from a palm oil company with a history of corruption, land grabbing and other violations.
- PT Hardaya Inti Plantations (HIP) stands accused of harvesting palm fruit from the villagers’ land without paying them according to a profit-sharing agreement reached in 2008.
- In addition to the lost earnings, the villagers say they’ve run up massive amounts of debt, including to pay management fees to the company, and have reported HIP to the business competition regulator and to one of its biggest customers, commodity giant Wilmar International.
- HIP has a rocky history in Buol: its owner was jailed for bribing the district head to issue her the concession; it somehow managed to get a forest-clearing permit from the environment minister despite the clear-cut case of corruption; and it’s accused of planting oil palms on thousands of hectares outside its concession.

Mongabay investigation is turned into art for World Press Freedom Day event
- Mongabay’s award-winning investigation that revealed water contamination from palm oil plantations in Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon inspired an art installation at UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day Conference in Santiago; the artwork was also exhibited at Chile’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
- A group of 12 theater design students and three professors from the University of Chile worked together with Mongabay reporter Karla Mendes to create the concept of an art exhibition to highlight the hidden environmental damages of “sustainable” palm oil found in many common items bought at grocery stores without our being aware of the impacts.
- Published in 2021, the Mongabay investigation revealed water contamination from pesticides used on oil palm crops and clearing of native forests for crops impacting the Tembé people in northern Pará state; in late 2022, the investigation was used as key evidence by federal prosecutors to obtain a court decision to probe the environmental impacts of pesticides used by oil palm plantations in Pará.
- The palm oil art installation and other successful projects in which journalists and artists collaborated were also highlighted at a panel focused on how to promote more inclusive journalism narratives to convey environmental and climate change issues.

Beyond deforestation, oil palm estates pose flood and water contamination risks
- Clearing of forests for oil palm plantations can increase flooding risk and water contamination for downstream communities, a new study shows.
- The research focused on the Kais River watershed in Indonesian Papua, where about 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of forest have been clear for plantations as of 2021.
- For the Indigenous Kais community living downstream, this period has coincided with an increase in flooding and a decline in water quality.
- The raised flooding risk comes from the fact that oil palms aren’t nearly as effective as forest trees in slowing rainwater runoff, while the water contamination has been traced to the intensive use of agrochemicals on the plantations.

NZ funding helps Indigenous farmers in Indonesia protect forests, boost incomes
- Two Indigenous villages in Indonesian Borneo have received initial funding of nearly $15,000 from the New Zealand government to improve their livelihoods while protecting their ancestral forests.
- Residents of the Dayak villages of Setawar and Gunam mostly grow oil palms, but also still rely on their ancestral forests for making medicinal herbs, producing handicrafts and carrying out traditional rituals.
- The funding, channeled through the Farmers For Forest Protection Foundation (4F), will go toward programs such as training and deployment of forest guards, forest management support, and implementation of good agricultural practices.

Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally
- The biggest deforestation hotspot for palm oil in Indonesia is located on a small island off the southern Borneo coast, new data show.
- Up to 10,650 hectares (26,317 acres) of forest — one-sixth the size of Jakarta — were cleared from 2022-2023 inside the concession of PT Multi Sarana Agro Mandiri (MSAM), part of the influential Jhonlin Group.
- Activists say the company’s operations may be illegal, given the questionable process through which it obtained its permits.
- However, law enforcers have ignored calls to investigate, and previous efforts by journalists to expose the group’s business practices have led to their criminal prosecution on hate speech charges.

Pro-business parties accused of holding back Indonesia’s Indigenous rights bill
- Pro-business political parties in Indonesia have deliberately stalled the passage of an Indigenous rights bill for more than a decade, lawmakers and activists allege.
- These parties fear ceding control of natural resources to Indigenous communities by giving them land rights, they add.
- Lawmakers trying to push the bill through have identified the PDI-P and the Golkar Party as the main opponents of the bill, but others say it’s the entire ruling coalition: seven parties that control 82% of seats in parliament.
- Indigenous activists say the bill is urgently needed to formalize Indigenous land rights and stop the hemorrhaging of customary lands and forests to commercial, industrial and infrastructure projects.

Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island
- The Lanun Indigenous community of Indonesia’s Belitung Island have responded to increasing environmental damage by building their capacity in skills such as advocacy and mediation.
- At issue is the growth in illegal mining and forest clearing by the plantation industry on land that the Lanun consider to have long been theirs.
- In 2021, UNESCO announced this area of Indonesia would become an international geopark, which required joint applications by government and local communities to conserve a landscape of global significance.

Snack giant PepsiCo sourced palm oil from razed Indigenous land – investigation
- In the last few years it is likely that PepsiCo has been using in its production palm oil from deforested land claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in eastern Peru, a new investigation has found.
- Palm oil from Peru enters PepsiCo’s supply chain via a consortium that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, the second largest palm oil producer in the country which has been associated with deforestation and violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In the last three years, further deforestation occurred within the company’s land, the investigation found.
- Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people.
- PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products containing Peruvian palm oil that could be linked to deforestation. The company has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.

As fires ravaged Indonesia in 2023, some positive trends emerged, data show
- Indonesia’s 2023 fire season saw 1.16 million hectares (2.87 million acres) of land and forest go up in flames, and while this was five times higher than in 2022, experts highlight a positive trend.
- The fires were exacerbated by an intense El Niño weather system, unlike in 2022; the last time similar conditions prevailed, in 2019, the area affected by fires was much larger, suggesting fire mitigation efforts may be working.
- Most of the burning occurred in scrubland and areas of degraded forest rather than in intact forests, meaning greenhouse gas emissions from the burning were also much lower than in 2023.
- But a worrying trend highlighted by the numbers is that severe fires are now occurring in four-year cycles, intensified and exacerbated by the impacts of a changing climate.

Tropical forest loss puts 2030 zero-deforestation target further out of reach
- The overall rate of primary forest loss across the tropics remained stubbornly high in 2023, putting the world well off track from its net-zero deforestation target by 2030, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute.
- The few bright spots were Brazil and Colombia, where changes in political leadership helped drive down deforestation rates in the Amazon.
- Elsewhere, however, several countries hit record-high rates of forest loss, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and Laos, driven largely by agriculture, mining and fires.
- The report authors call for “bold global mechanisms and unique local initiatives … to achieve enduring reductions in deforestation across all tropical front countries.”

PalmWatch platform pushes for farm-to-fork traceability of palm oil
- PalmWatch, an online, open-source tool, is seeking to bring greater transparency to the global palm oil supply web, to better help consumers trace the impact of the commodity.
- A key hurdle to transparency has long been the fact that batches of palm oil and their derivatives sourced by consumer brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo potentially contain product from hundreds of mills processing palm fruit from thousands of plantations.
- By scraping various websites with mill disclosure data and standardizing the information in one place, PalmWatch can come up with a supply chain map that can link specific mills, suppliers and consumer brands to harms associated with palm oil.
- Advocacy groups have welcomed the launch of the tool, saying it will allow for improved targeting of campaigns to get brands to push for more sustainable practices in their supply chains.

Sumatra community faces up to ‘plasma’ disappointment after palm oil policy shift
- A 2022 investigation by Mongabay, the BBC and The Gecko Project found that hundreds of thousands of hectares of land had not been handed to communities by palm oil companies despite provisions in a 2007 law.
- In 2023, Indonesia’s Directorate-General of Plantations published updated rules stating that companies with licenses issued prior to 2007 would not be required to hand 20% of their concession to local farmers, although companies licensed after 2007 would still be required to do so.
- In Tebing Tinggi Okura on the island of Sumatra, a community is coming to terms with this change after a near two-decade dispute from which they hoped to win rights to farming land for hundreds of families.

‘Shocking’ mortality of infant macaques points to dangers of oil palm plantations
- As oil palm plantations encroach on rainforests, wild primates increasingly enter them to forage, where they face the threat of being eaten by feral dogs, killed for raiding crops, or caught by traffickers for the pet trade.
- A new study from Peninsular Malaysia finds that exposure to oil plantations also significantly increases the risk of death among infant southern pig-tailed macaques.
- In addition to known threats, researchers speculate common pesticides used in oil palm plantations might play a role in the increased death risks for infant macaques, but their study stops short of providing direct evidence implicating any specific toxic chemical in these deaths.
- Conservationists call for using environmentally safe and wildlife-friendly agricultural practices in oil plantations to minimize risks and establishing wildlife corridors and tree islands so that endangered primates, like southern pig-tailed macaques, can move freely without being exposed to threats.

Palm oil deforestation makes comeback in Indonesia after decade-long slump
- Deforestation for oil palm plantations has increased for the second year in a row in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, bucking a decade-long decline in forest loss.
- A third of the 2023 deforestation occurred on carbon-rich peatlands, raising the potential for massive greenhouse gas emissions as these areas are cleared and drained in preparation for planting.
- Historically, deforestation for plantations in Indonesia was concentrated on the island of Sumatra, but the surge in the past two years has been mostly on the islands of Indonesian Borneo and Papua.

New tool aims to help palm oil firms comply with deforestation regulations
- A new online tool launched by web-based monitoring platform Palmoil.io aims to help companies check their compliance with deforestation regulations for palm oil.
- PlotCheck enables companies to upload plot boundaries without having to store it in the cloud, thereby working around concerns on data security and privacy.
- The tool analyzes the plot for deforestation based on publicly available satellite data; it also displays data on historical deforestation in the plot as well as palm oil processing mills in the proximity.
- “The output is going to be a statement which companies can submit to authorities to prove that their shipment is deforestation-free,” said Leo Bottrill, founder of Palmoil.io.

Jokowi’s land reform agenda stalls as conflicts nearly double, report shows
- Land conflicts in Indonesia have nearly doubled under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as his administration pursues an investor-first economic agenda that has sidelined local communities and the environment, a new report shows.
- There were 2,939 pending disputes affecting 1.75 million households in the nine years to date of the Jokowi administration, compared to 1,520 disputes involving 977,000 households during the 10 years of the previous administration.
- The report by the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) says the government has largely failed in its reform agenda, having previously promised to register community-owned lands and redistribute expired concessions back to communities.
- A key driver of land disputes are infrastructure projects that the Jokowi administration has designated as projects of “national strategic importance,” which gives the government eminent domain rights to evict entire communities.

Indonesian palm oil firm fined for fires sues expert a second time over testimony
- Environmental law experts say palm oil company PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa (JJP) is attempting to shirk its liability and fines for a forest fire by suing an expert witness who testified against it.
- The lawsuit is the second that JJP has filed against Bambang Hero Saharjo, an expert on fire forensics at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB); the company dropped its previous lawsuit against him in 2018.
- The company blames Bambang, who testified about the extent of the fire damage on JJP’s concession, for the high amount that it was fined, saying his testimony was “false and exaggerated.”
- Bambang and fellow experts refute this, saying JJP’s repeated lawsuits are a frivolous attempt to avoid having to take responsibility or to pay; to date, the company hasn’t paid any of the $36.7 million that it was fined for the fire.

2023 fires increase fivefold in Indonesia amid El Niño
- Nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres, an area 15 times the size of Jakarta) burned in Indonesia between January and October 2023, according to environment and forest ministry data; El Niño and burning for new plantations contributed to this.
- 2023 was the worst fire season since 2019, when that year’s El Niño brought a prolonged dry season and fires so severe, they sent billowing smoke across Malaysia and Singapore.
- In the absence of local jobs, some people burn abandoned farmlands and turn them into new plantations as a way to make a living and survive.

Indonesian districts trial a shift from commodity monocrops to sustainable produce
- A network of district governments across Indonesia is working on transitioning away from commodity-based economic development to sustainable, nature-based solutions.
- Many of these districts are heavily reliant on monoculture plantations like palm oil, or other extractive industries like oil and gas, and are making the shift to better preserve forests and peatlands, as well as indigenous Indonesian forest commodities.
- Among those making progress is the district of Siak in the palm oil heartland of Riau province, where large palm oil and pulpwood companies are supporting the development of nature-based commodities by local communities.
- The national government is also involved in this search to “innovate economic models outside of plantation commodities that can support forest conservation and are locally based.”

Activists slam ‘independent’ probe by Indonesian palm oil giant into violations
- A report commissioned by Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari into alleged violations allegedly by its subsidiaries on the island of Sulawesi failed to investigate key issues such as community rights, NGOs say.
- The investigation was triggered by multiple media and NGO reports on the long-running conflict between three AAL subsidiaries and local communities in Central Sulawesi province who allege the companies grabbed their land.
- The investigation failed to verify whether AAL’s subsidiaries had obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local and Indigenous communities before operating in the area, according to Walhi and Friends of the Earth US.
- Instead, the verification focused on proving whether the communities in the area had legal permits to their land that overlaps with AAL’s concessions, resulting in biased and inaccurate findings, the NGOs say.

Indigenous groups rebuke court OK for palm oil company to raze Papua forests
- Indigenous Awyu tribal members in Papua lambasted a court decision that effectively greenlights palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari’s plans to raze 26,326 hectares (65,000 acres) of primary forest that sit on ancestral lands.
- If developed in full, the project would replace 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies.
- The impending deforestation would subsequently release at least 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is 5% of Indonesia’s estimated annual carbon emissions.

Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Located in southern Nigeria, Oluwa Forest Reserve is supposed to be a bastion for the region’s wildlife – which includes critically endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- But the influx of thousands of settlers into the reserve is coming at the cost of its rainforests, with satellite data and imagery showing ongoing clearing into primary forest.
- Palm oil companies are also establishing industrial plantations in the reserve.
- Conservationists and officials warn that vulnerable wildlife populations may be wiped out if forest loss and bushmeat hunting continues at its current rate.

As RSPO celebrates 20 years of work, Indigenous groups lament unresolved grievances
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its annual conference in Jakarta to celebrate 20 years of growth and impact — but activists and Indigenous communities say they’ve been waiting years for RSPO to resolve ongoing conflicts and long-standing complaints.
- Indigenous groups and local communities that have lost their lands and forests say the RSPO grievance system has left them without justice or resolution.
- While the RSPO says it has improved its methods of dealing with grievances, affected communities say their complaints have been dismissed for lack of evidence, they have awaited answers for years and their voices aren’t being heard.

Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
- Papua New Guinea boasts the third largest rainforest in the world and houses about 7% of the planet’s biodiversity, including threatened species found nowhere else in the world.
- In recent years, fraudulent practices in the logging and agriculture industry have resulted in massive forest loss across the country while road network expansion plans threaten to further fragment forests and open them up for resource exploitation.
- Satellite data and imagery show logging activity on the rise in PNG, particularly in the province of Oro.
- Conservationists and officials say forest laws must be tightened in PNG and local communities included in decision-making to reduce forest loss, while incentivizing communities to conserve the remaining forests.

Investigation shows ‘shadow companies’ linked to Indonesia palm oil giant First Resources
- The investigation is part of Deforestation Inc, a reporting collaboration coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involving journalists from 28 countries.
- The findings indicate that companies associated with First Resources may have been behind more deforestation in Southeast Asia during the last five years than any other corporate organization.
- First Resources continues to supply blue chip consumer goods companies with palm oil, including Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo.

How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
- Decades of deforestation to make way for oil palm monoculture have transformed the Kinabatangan River floodplain in east Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, dividing wildlife populations and confining many of the region’s most iconic species to small fragments of forest that cling on along the river.
- Local communities and conservation initiatives are working together to restore and reconnect pockets of remaining habitat along the river to preserve the vital wildlife corridor, but restoration in the unpredictable and often-waterlogged floodplain is notoriously difficult.
- One such initiative, Regrow Borneo, is facing the challenge by leveraging the expertise of scientists and local knowledge of community members who have been planting forests along the Kinabatangan for decades.
- They say that by focusing their approach on a model that benefits both people and wildlife, they hope their program inspires others to shift away from simply planting numbers of trees toward restoring forests where they’re most needed, including in areas that present challenging conditions.

Burn now, pay later: Fines trickle in from Indonesia’s crackdown on forest fires
- Ten years since a landmark lawsuit over forest fires, the palm oil company at the center of the case has finally begun paying its $23 million fine in installments.
- The case against PT Kallista Alam (KA) was supposed to set an example for how the government is cracking down on companies that allow burning in their concessions, but has instead highlighted the difficulty of collecting on the fines.
- KA has paid just $3.6 million of its total fine, and despite a 2021 regulation barring fine payments in installments, the company has been allowed to stagger its payments over time.
- The company is one of 22 sued by the government since 2013 for fires; 14 of these have been found liable and ordered to pay a combined 5.6 trillion rupiah ($353 million), but only one has paid in full.

As fire season worsens, Indonesian activists report four companies for burning

JAKARTA — Activists have reported four companies — two industrial forest firms and two palm oil firms — to the local police over fires in their concessions in Central Kalimantan as Indonesia is grappling with its worst fire episode since 2019. According to satellite image analysis done Sept. 2-10, the activists found a total of […]
Conservationists look to defy gloomy outlook for Borneo’s sun bears
- Sun bears are keystone species, helping sustain healthy tropical forests. Yet they’re facing relentless challenges to their survival from deforestation, habitat degradation, poaching and indiscriminate snaring; fewer than 10,000 are thought to remain across the species’ entire global range.
- A bear rehabilitation program in Malaysian Borneo cares for 44 sun bears rescued from captivity and the pet trade and has been releasing bears back into the wild since 2015. But with threats in the wild continuing unabated, success has been mixed.
- A recent study indicates that as few as half of the released bears are still alive, demonstrating that rehabilitation alone will never be enough to tackle the enormous threats and conservation issues facing the bears in the wild.
- Preventing bears from being poached from the wild in the first place should be the top priority, experts say, calling for a holistic approach centered on livelihood support for local communities through ecotourism to encourage lifestyles that don’t involve setting snares that can kill bears.

Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.

Deforestation surges in hotspot of critically endangered Bornean orangutans
- Deforestation within a pulpwood concession that overlaps with key orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo has escalated in recent months.
- Concession holder PT Mayawana Persada cleared 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of forest between January and August, or 40 times the size of New York’s Central Park, of which 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) were areas identified as orangutan habitat.
- In July alone, the company cleared 4,970 hectares (12,300 acres), the highest monthly deforestation figure recorded.

Indonesia’s besieged Tesso Nilo National Park hit hard by yet more deforestation, satellites show
- Sumatra’s Tesso Nilo National Park boasts one of the highest levels of lowland plant diversity known to science and harbors an estimated 3% of the planet’s mammal species.
- But industrial tree plantations, encouraged by the COVID-19 pandemic and boosted by high palm oil prices, are quickly supplanting the park’s remaining habitat.
- Satellite data show the park lost 87% of its primary forest cover between 2002 and 2022, most of which was cleared after the government expanded Tesso Nilo’s boundaries in 2009
- Preliminary data from GFW, along with satellite imagery, indicate 2023 has been another particularly bad year for the park’s remaining habitat, with clearings nearly severing Tesso Nilo’s last large tract of forest by September.

Report: Half of plantations in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland are illegal
- Nearly half of plantations in Riau province, Indonesia’s palm oil heartland, are illegal, according to a new report by the Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of NGOs based in Sumatra.
- With the illegal plantations spanning 2.52 million hectares (6.23 million acres) of land — an area nearly the size of Hawai‘i — Riau is home to more than half of illegal oil palm plantations in Indonesia.
- EoF has called on the government to focus its amnesty program, which gives operators of illegal plantations a grace period of three years to obtain the proper permits, in Riau.
- It has also called for greater transparency in the amnesty program to avoid corruption in the process.

Indonesian police slammed after protester demanding rightful land is shot dead
- Indonesian police have reportedly shot dead one protester and injured two others in a flareup of yet another land dispute between communities and outside investors.
- Residents of the mostly Indigenous Dayak village of Bangkal in Central Kalimantan province have since Sept. 16 protested over palm oil company HMBP’s failure to allocate land to them as required by law.
- Police claim the protesters attacked security forces in the Oct. 7 clash, but video and witness accounts from the ground strongly suggest otherwise.
- Activists say the Bangkal case is emblematic of how the Indonesian government prioritizes commercial interests over those of communities, including using excessive force against protesters.

Bolloré blacklisted over alleged rights violations on plantations in Africa and Asia
- French logistics giant Bolloré SE has been deemed an unethical investment by some of Switzerland’s most powerful pension funds.
- Bolloré failed to act to resolve accusations of human rights abuses committed by its subsidiary, Socfin, around oil palm and rubber plantations in West Africa and Southeast Asia, the Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR) determined.
- Investigators commissioned by Socfin recently found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment in Liberia and Cameroon; field visits to other sites will take place later this year.

Experts slam massive ‘discount’ in fines for Indonesian palm oil billionaire
- Environmental experts have criticized an Indonesian court ruling that extends a palm oil billionaire’s sentence for corruption by just one year while slashing his fines by nearly 95%.
- The country’s highest court of appeal upheld the initial conviction of Surya Darmadi for conspiring with a local official to illegally obtain licenses for his oil palm plantation, but cut his fines from $2.7 billion to just $144 million.
- Experts who testified in Surya’s prosecution say the latest ruling sets a bad precedent for future law enforcement against corruption and environmental crimes in the country.
- And without fines, they warn, there can be no efforts to recover the carbon-rich and biodiverse peat ecosystems in Sumatra that Surya’s plantations destroyed.

10 years after land grab, local Nigerian farmers continue fight against palm oil producer
- A decade after transnational palm oil company Wilmar took control of a derelict oil palm plantation, local residents continue to fight for the farmlands, forests and rivers they use.
- The government leased land from several local communities in 1962, but abandoned it in the 1970s.
- In 2012, against the backdrop of a drive to expand Nigeria’s palm oil production, the land was transferred to Wilmar in a move bitterly resisted by local residents.
- Critics say expanding oil palm plantations are accelerating deforestation and local residents complain that Wilmar has encroached on their farms and wastewater from the plantation has contaminated watercourses.

Deforestation for palm oil continues in Indonesia’s ‘orangutan capital’
- Carbon-rich peatlands continue to be cleared and drained in an Indonesian protected wildlife reserve known as the “orangutan capital of the world,” with 26 kilometers (16 miles) of new canals dug so far in 2023, up from 9 km (5.6 mi) in 2022, according to an investigation by the advocacy group Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
- While new plantations appeared to have not been established yet along the new canal channels, there is a mosaic of illegal oil palm around the locations of the new canal, indicating a future development of palm oil.
- As new canals continue to be dug, deforestation has also picked up, reaching 372 hectares (919 acres) in the first six months of 2023, a 57% increase from the same period in 2022.
- RAN has called on global brands like Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to address the development of new canals and illegal plantations as their supply chains are tainted with illegal palm oil from the wildlife reserve.

Group certification helps Malaysia’s Sabah aim for palm oil sustainability
- In 2015, the government of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo committed to gaining sustainability certification for 100% of the state’s palm oil by 2025, becoming the first region in the world to pilot such a jurisdictional approach.
- As the deadline nears, getting smallholders certified has proved to be a major challenge; out of an estimated 30,000 smallholders in the state, just 885 have been certified.
- The certification process can be difficult and expensive for small farmers, but NGOs like WWF are working to overcome this barrier by supporting growers’ cooperatives.
- Other obstacles in the statewide certification process include debate over whether any deforestation should be allowed for oil palm, and the continued issuance of licenses to clear forest in the state.

Kellogg’s latest to freeze Indonesian supplier over palm oil violations
- U.S. cereal giant Kellogg’s has become the latest major consumer goods brand to suspend business ties with Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari (AAL).
- It joins the likes of Hershey’s, PepsiCo and Nestlé, which all stopped buying palm oil from AAL following a 2022 report alleging land grabbing, environmental degradation, and the criminal persecution of environmental and human rights defenders.
- AAL has denied the allegations and launched an independent investigation, but has not yet taken steps to remedy the harm allegedly done.
- Activists say the investigation unfairly puts the onus on local communities to prove their allegations against AAL, and have called on other consumer goods companies and investors to stand up to AAL.

Court ruling spares Papua forest from further clearing for palm oil
- An Indonesian court has rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies operating in the Tanah Merah mega oil palm plantation project in the country’s Papua region.
- The ruling means the companies are legally required to stop clearing forest in their concessions and preserve what remains.
- Activists and Indigenous Awyu people living in the area have welcomed the ruling, but point out that communities in the concession areas still don’t have legal recognition of their ancestral rights to these forests.
- They’ve called on the government to formally recognize their ancestral rights and ensure the companies’ permits to the concessions are revoked.

Indonesia permit payoff raises alarm about palm oil industry corruption
- The ongoing trial of an Indonesian official accused of taking bribes from palm oil companies to expedite their permits has prompted calls for greater scrutiny into corruption in the sector.
- Muhammad Syahrir, formerly the head of the land agencies in Riau and North Maluku provinces, is accused of taking 20.9 billion rupiah ($1.36 million) in bribes from various companies over the course of five years.
- In the case at the center of the trial, Syahrir is alleged to have solicited the equivalent of $228,000 from palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari to renew its right-to-cultivate permit, known as an HGU.
- Environmental law experts say the secrecy around HGU permits is what allows corruption to flourish, and have renewed calls for the government to make the permit data publicly accessible.

Palm oil, pulpwood firms not doing enough to prevent peat fires, analysis shows
- More than 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of oil palm, pulpwood and other concessions across Indonesia are at high risk of being burned because of companies’ failure to restore the peat landscape, according to a new analysis.
- This represents more than half of the Switzerland-sized area of tropical peatland throughout Indonesia that’s considered a high fire risk.
- With many concession holders still not doing enough to restore the peat landscapes in their concessions, researchers question the effectiveness of government mandates and certification schemes in preventing peat fires.
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) credits its early fire detection system with helping member concessions achieve lower numbers of hotspots than noncertified concessions, but groups like Greenpeace dispute the findings.

Investigation confirms most allegations against plantation operator Socfin
- After visits to plantations in Liberia and Cameroon, the Earthworm Foundation consultancy has confirmed many allegations against Belgian tropical plantation operator Socfin.
- Investigators found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment practices at both of the sites they visited.
- Activists in both countries remain unsatisfied, saying the consultancy should have spoken to a wider range of community members and calling for Socfin to answer directly to communities with grievances.

Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- In just 72 hours, five Indigenous people were wounded by gunfire in violent attacks in the past few days in a part of the Brazilian Amazon dubbed the “palm oil war” region, sparking outrage and claims for justice.
- This was the latest episode in a wave of escalating violence tied to land disputes between Indigenous communities and palm oil companies in the region, which Mongabay has consistently reported on over the past year.
- In this video, Mongabay showcases the Tembé Indigenous peoples’ outrage against increasing violence in the area as they protest for justice.

Indigenous activists demand justice after 5 shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
- Between Aug. 4 and Aug. 7, security guards for a palm oil company allegedly shot and wounded five Tembé Indigenous people, in the latest flareup linked to a long-running land dispute.
- The incidents occurred in a part of the Amazonian state of Pará that’s been dubbed the “palm oil war” region, where Mongabay has over the past year documented the escalating tensions.
- Pará’s State Department of Public Security and Social Defense said the security guard identified as the mastermind of the initial shooting has been arrested, and inquiries to identify the other suspects are ongoing, along with increased security in the area.
- Palm oil company Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF) has denied the accusations, saying the Indigenous people had invaded part of its property and initiated the attack on its private security officers during an attempt to evict them.

New farmers foundation supports deforestation-free products in Indonesia
- Palm oil farmers in Indonesia have established a new foundation to help farmers around the country in protecting forests and selling their sustainable products to the global market.
- The foundation was established after the Indonesian palm oil farmers union, SPKS, carried out a pilot project in six villages in western Borneo.
- The pilot project proved that smallholders could cultivate palm oil without clearing forests by implementing the high carbon stock (HCS) approach, but they needed incentives and benefits.
- This is where the new foundation, called the Farmers For Forest Protection Foundation (4F), comes in by providing farmers with both financial and non-financial support, like training.

Oil palm and balsa plantations trigger deforestation in Ecuadorian Amazon
- Roads constructed for the oil industry have facilitated timber extraction in the Amazon for decades. Recent deforestation alerts show that this problem is ongoing.
- In Via Auca, one of the most deforested areas of Ecuador’s Amazon, farmers are turning to planting oil palm under the contract farming model.
- On the Via a Loreto, Indigenous Kichwa people are focusing on cultivating balsa trees used for a material that has been in high demand in the wind energy industry for the last five years.

Oil palms may be magnet for macaques, boars, at expense of other biodiversity
- A new study documents the “hyperabundance” of two generalist mammals around oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, highlighting the indirect ecological impacts of oil palm expansion across the region.
- The research team found local numbers of wild pigs and macaques “exploded” in proximity to oil palm plantations, where they believe the animals derive enormous fitness benefits by consuming high-calorie palm fruit.
- Scientists caution that while these species can aggregate in some areas, their overall numbers are in decline due to a wide range of threats, including habitat loss, environmental degradation, disease outbreak, and poaching for the pet trade and biomedical research.
- The researchers call for the establishment of buffer zones around oil palm plantations and avoiding encroachment into intact forest as a way to address any problems arising from negative human-wildlife interactions and ecological impacts.

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.

Supply chain report investigates deforestation tied to palm growing in Colombia
- An investigation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Netherlands and AidEnvironment analyzed six case studies relating to companies accused of deforestation and causing socio-environmental disputes.
- Colombia is the fourth- largest palm producer in the world after Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Experts say there is a lack of progress in Colombia’s palm oil supply chain traceability.
- A new European Parliament law requires companies to issue certifications that exported goods do not come from deforested land, primary forests or areas of forest degradation.

Study: More than 900 at-risk species lack international trade protections
- A recent study reveals concerning gaps in trade protections for the most at-risk animal and plant species.
- To identify potential gaps, researchers compared species on the IUCN Red List with those covered by the CITES, the global wildlife trade convention.
- Two-fifths of the species considered at risk due to international wildlife trade, 904 species, aren’t covered by CITES, the study found.
- The researchers suggest steps that the CITES committees can take to incorporate these findings, including both strengthening protections for overlooked species and relaxing trade controls for species that have shown improvement in their conservation status.

Most Indonesian palm oil firms not sharing land with small farmers as required: audit
- Only 21% of Indonesian oil palm plantation companies have fulfilled their legal obligations to allocate land for smallholder farmers under a scheme called plasma, a new government audit shows.
- To address the lack of compliance by companies, the government has established a task force.
- The task force will also address other issues in the plantation industry, such as tax avoidance.

Indonesia slammed for ‘bowing down’ in amnesty for illegal oil palm estates
- The Indonesian government says it has no other option in dealing with illegal plantations than to legalize them under an amnesty program.
- Activists have lambasted the justification, saying it signals the state’s capitulation to environmental violators.
- They say the government has the option of taking legal action against the plantation operators, for which there’s already legal precedent.
- The amnesty program is set to run until the end of this year, with the aim of legalizing illegal plantations spanning an area the size of the Netherlands.

Indonesia claims record-low deforestation, but accounting raises questions
- Official data show Indonesia lost an area of forest two-thirds the size of London in 2021-2022, marking a third straight annual decline.
- The government attributes the continued drop to various forest protection policies, such as permanent ban on new permits to clear primary forests and peatlands as well as forest fire mitigation.
- However, data from the University of Maryland show Indonesia’s primary tree cover loss actually increased by 13% in 2022 compared to 2021 data — the first increase since 2017.
- The disparity in data comes from differences in methodology and definitions of deforestation and forests adopted by UMD and the Indonesian government.

Civil society changes up campaign against jailed Kalimantan farmers
- In April, three farmers from Kinjil village in Central Kalimantan were arrested on suspicion of oil palm theft from land controlled by a plantation firm following a land dispute.
- The farmers’ case has been taken up by a coalition of civil society groups, and a complaint has been lodged with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
- Several complaints have been launched against companies associated with Bumitama Agri Ltd., a Singapore-based plantation firm tied to Indonesia’s Harita Group.

Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil firm faces global backlash over community conflict
- A growing list of global household brands, from PepsiCo to L’Oréal to Hershey’s, have suspended their purchases from Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), Indonesia’s second- largest palm oil producer.
- The move comes in the wake of reports of land grabbing, environmental degradation and criminal persecution of human rights defenders by AAL and its subsidiaries operating in Central Sulawesi province.
- AAL has launched an independent investigation into the matter, but NGOs say the process is unnecessary as the evidence of violations is plain.
- They say the company should instead focus on returning the land it claims to the farmers and communities who were there first.

Degraded, but not defunct: Modified land still has wildlife value, study says
- Researchers studying how species respond to repeated and rapid land cover changes say more focus needs to be placed on preserving the biodiversity value of human-dominated landscapes.
- With much of the world’s intact ecosystems now modified by humans, the study warns that without careful management, species will be lost each time land is converted from one land-use type to another, such as when forestry is transitioned to plantation or agriculture.
- The researchers call for biodiversity impact assessments when land is proposed for conversion, regardless of whether it is intact primary habitat or considered “degraded” land.
- They also recommend the identification, preservation and restoration of natural features of landscapes, such as forest fragments, large and old trees, and wetlands, which can serve as vital refuges for species between successive land conversions.

Nearly 85% of Indonesian peatlands aren’t protected, study shows
- This article has been withdrawn from publication by Mongabay.

Communities accuse Socfin and Earthworm Foundation of greenwash in West Africa
- A grievance assessment mission commissioned by Belgian oil palm and rubber company Socfin has been rejected by communities affected by the company’s operations in several African and Asian countries.
- Reasons include the Earthworm Foundation’s relationship with Socfin as a paying member, lack of adequate coordination with affected stakeholders, and the company’s history of refusing to enter conflict resolution suggested by third-party bodies.
- Phase one, consisting of missions to Liberia and Cameroon, has just been concluded without the participation of local groups, who say they were not included in the planning process.

Alleged torturers roam free as Indonesia struggles to bring charges in palm oil slavery case
- Prosecutors in Indonesia have still not charged the majority of men implicated in a slave-labor scandal at a local official’s oil palm plantation.
- The New York Times reported that only 13 of some 60 men, including military and police officers, remain free despite dozens of victims and witnesses accusing them of human trafficking and torture.
- The official, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, was jailed last year in a bribery case but never charged in the human trafficking case for enslaving the victims under the guise of a drug rehabilitation program.
- Prosecutor said a reliance on local police investigators whose own colleagues had participated in the forced-labor scheme had impeded their work.

Palm oil giants face corruption charges as Indonesia probe widens
- Indonesian prosecutors have charged three palm oil giants with corruption relating to a cooking oil shortage across the country last year.
- Permata Hijau, Wilmar International and Musim Mas are alleged to have benefited from the criminal actions of their executives, who were convicted earlier this year in the same case.
- The executives were found to have bribed a top trade ministry official to issue the companies with permits to export their palm oil for a high price rather than sell it domestically at a capped rate.
- Industry watchdogs have welcomed efforts to prosecute the companies, but say these must be accompanied by an overhaul of the industry in general.

Palm oil: The crop that cuts into southeastern Mexico’s jungles and mangroves
- When deforestation caused by oil palms expanded in Indonesia or Malaysia, Mexican federal and state officials did everything they could to encourage planting these native African palms around the Lacandon Jungle.
- Between 2014 and 2019, at least 5,400 hectares (13,343 acres) of forests and jungle were lost due to the expansion of oil palm in Chiapas, Campeche, Tabasco and Veracruz, according to cartographic analysis carried out by the authors of the study “Cultivation of Oil Palm in Mexico.”
- At least 4,000 ha (9,800 acres) of oil palm are found inside the La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve, a protected natural area on the Chiapas coast. The most remarkable monoculture expansion has occurred in the last 10 years.

In Indonesia, companies defy government’s decision to revoke their permits
- Logging, plantation and mining companies have continued to operate and have been mired in conflicts with communities since their permits were targeted for revocation by the Indonesian government, a new report says.
- In Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua alone, four palm oil companies cleared 943.3 hectares (2,331 acres) of forests in the first four months of 2023 — an area three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
- Civil groups have been calling on the government to redistribute the revoked concessions to local and Indigenous communities, but they say their calls haven’t been heard.

Sumatra Indigenous community displaced by Samsung palm oil unit await justice
- The Talang Parit Indigenous community have witnessed their ability to sustain daily life become increasingly fraught since an oil palm plantation company, Inecda, began clearing their customary territory more than 25 years ago.
- The community faces water stress and blames difficulty in finding groundwater on the canals dug by the company to drain the landscape for its oil palm trees.
- The community has initiated a formal complaint to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and is awaiting the findings of site visits conducted by the Geneva-based organization.

Peatlands, Indonesia’s carbon trove, are mostly unprotected, study finds
- A new study finds that less than 16% of Indonesia’s peatlands in need of conservation measures are currently protected.
- The remainder, covering a combined area nearly twice the size of Belgium, are located outside of protected areas.
- This indicates that current conservation and restoration efforts aren’t sufficient and need to be increased, researchers say.
- They offer their study as a tool for policymakers to precisely identify peat areas where different types of interventions should be prioritized.

Palm giants Wilmar, Indofood, RGE fined over Indonesian cooking oil shortage
- The Indonesian government’s business competition watchdog has ruled seven companies, including subsidiaries of palm oil giants Wilmar, Salim Group and Asian Agri, guilty of restricting sales of cooking oil amid an acute shortage in early 2022.
- The watchdog, the KPPU, has fined the companies $4.75 million for hoarding cooking oil after the government capped the retail price in response to a price surge.
- Wilmar says it’s disappointed with the ruling and is considering filing an appeal.
- A Wilmar board member was earlier this year convicted and jailed for redirecting palm oil meant for the domestic market to the export market, where prices were higher.

Indonesia, Malaysia deploy ministers to push back on EU palm oil restrictions
- Indonesia and Malaysia will send top officials to Brussels to voice concerns over a new regulation that bans the trading of commodities associated with deforestation, including palm oil.
- The officials will meet with European policymakers to discuss ways to minimize the regulation’s impacts on palm oil producers, particularly smallholders.
- The world’s two biggest palm oil producers have long protested EU policies against palm oil, calling them discriminatory and protectionist of Europe’s own oilseeds industry.

Indonesian audit finds taxes unpaid on 22 million acres of oil palm plantations
- An Indonesian government audit finds that taxes are not paid on some 9 million hectares (22.2 million acres) — an area three times the size of Belgium — don’t pay taxes, an Indonesian government audit finds.
- Luhut Pandjaitan, a top government official, says the government will impose penalties on plantation owners who don’t pay taxes rather than take them to court.
- Activists have called on the government to address the root causes of the issue, which is irregularities in the permit issuance process.

Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- On May 14, Indigenous chief Lúcio Tembé was shot by gunmen on an unpaved road in Brazil’s northern Pará state. This is the latest episode of violence in an area facing an outbreak of land conflicts between a major palm oil company and local communities, the so-called “palm oil war.”
- The Federal Public Ministry raised the possibility of the crime’s connection to conflicts with palm oil companies in the region and requested urgent measures of the Federal Police and Pará’s State Department of Public Security and Social Defense (Segup) in view of the intense level of conflict in the region “with concrete risks to the Indigenous peoples’ life and physical integrity.”
- A crisis committee to contain escalating conflicts in the region was announced on May 16; the crime is being investigated by the Federal Police and the Quatro Bocas municipal police station, urging that any relevant information be forwarded via the hotline 181 under guaranteed confidentiality.
- Some readers may find the images below disturbing, discretion is advised.

From palm oil waste to cellulosic ethanol: Indonesia’s opportunity (commentary)
- Many Indonesian farmers say they haven’t seen benefits from the country’s biofuel program. Cellulosic ethanol could help fix the problem, a new op-ed says.
- Tenny Kristiana of the International Council on Clean Transportation argues Indonesia could develop a domestic cellulosic ethanol industry that would use leftover plant residues such as palm trunks, empty palm fruit bunches and palm press fiber.
- Currently, Indonesia exports these leftovers to countries like Japan, but developing an industry at home could aid local farmers and create new jobs in factories, transportation and plantation work.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

New book by Mongabay Indonesia & Kaoem Telapak investigates palm oil industry
- A new book by Mongabay Indonesia and NGO Kaoem Telapak looks at five main issues in Indonesia’s palm oil industry.
- The book is written by 23 journalists who went to 20 palm oil-producing regions in Indonesia to investigate the industry.
- Among the issues highlighted in the book are land conflicts and deforestation.

EU deforestation tracking regulation sparks division among groups, producers
- The EU is poised to adopt a regulation that bans the trade of commodities from deforestation and illegal sources as the European Parliament recently passed the law.
- The proposed law continues to be divisive, with palm oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia calling the regulation too stringent and unfair, whereas civil society groups say the bill is too weak.
- In a recent joint statement, a group of 44 Indonesian CSOs say the EU regulation only focuses on eliminating deforestation from its supply chain, without addressing the root causes of deforestation in producing countries.

Palm oil giant hands over sacred community land for reforestation project
- After two years of local organizations campaigning in Cameroon’s Mbonjo village, palm oil giant Socapalm has handed over three sacred sites, totaling approximately three hectares (about seven acres) of land, to a community.
- However, the total is still short of what the community asked for, which was initially 30 hectares (about 74 acres).
- The local environmental organization and traditional leaders who campaigned for the sacred sites say reforestation and land restoration projects are now in the works.
- Socapalm is highlighting its commitment to respecting the rights and traditions of communities in accordance with its social and sustainability certifications, while local critics continue to accuse it of land grabbing.

Indonesia legalizes illicit oil palm farms in program slammed as opaque
- Indonesia has legalized oil palm plantations one and a half times the size of London that were operating illegally in forest areas.
- Critics say the amnesty scheme effectively whitewashes the crimes of setting up plantations inside areas zoned as forest, where deforestation, wildfires and land conflicts are rife.
- To qualify for amnesty, plantation operators must pay fines and apply for the requisite licenses, but the process to date hasn’t been transparent, prompting concerns over backroom deals.
- With the deadline for the amnesty program ending this November, shortly before campaigning for next year’s elections begin, activists have also warned of the potential for operators to bribe candidates and officials in exchange for amnesty.

With little will to fight it, corruption is major risk for Indonesian palm oil
- Indonesia’s top 50 palm oil companies have weak antigraft measures, rendering the industry highly prone to corruption, according to a new report by Transparency International Indonesia.
- It found that practices such as political lobbying and revolving door practices among the 50 companies are barely regulated, and many companies don’t disclose their tax data.
- Some companies also don’t have antibribery policies and programs that extend to all staff, including executives and directors, the report says.
- On average, the 50 companies scored 3.5 out of 10 on six criteria, such as anticorruption programs, lobbying activities and data transparency.

RSPO suspension of Brazil palm oil exporter tied to Mongabay land-grabbing report
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) — a members organization including palm oil growers, traders, manufacturers, retailers, banks, investors and others — has had its certificate “temporarily suspended” since February.
- In December 2022, Mongabay published a yearlong investigation revealing that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma in northern Pará state derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau. Part of the area overlaps ancestral land claimed by Indigenous peoples and Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — including two cemeteries, which is at the center of a seven-year legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Just a few weeks after the publication of the investigation, representatives from the certifiers contacted Quilombola leaders “to understand the denouncements” published by the report, they went to the region and carried out audits in all affected communities; soon after, IBD Certifications Ltd. suspended Agropalma’s RSPO certificate.
- Assurance Services International (ASI), which evaluates the work of certifiers, confirmed that “the report was a reason for ASI to conduct a compliance assessment to IBD, the certifier of Agropalma, at the Certificate Holder’s premises.” University professors hired by ASI as local experts also cited the Mongabay investigation and this reporter when they contacted other key sources quoted in the report, as shown in email correspondence seen by Mongabay.

How do oil palm companies get away with disregarding Indonesian law? (commentary)
- University of Toronto anthropologist Tania Li argues that companies can act with impunity because of corporate-state collusion and a lack of organised resistance.
- Impunity does not mean Indonesia’s plantation zone is the Wild West. Rather than lawlessness, Li writes, the law sits adjacent to a parallel system of informal rules that affect when and how the law is observed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
- This article was produced by The Gecko Project and republished by Mongabay.

Palm oil deforestation hits record high in Sumatra’s ‘orangutan capital’
- Deforestation in a protected wildlife reserve known as the “orangutan capital of the world” hit a record high in 2022, according to various analyses.
- The forest loss was driven by clearing for oil palm plantations by well-connected local elites, rather than smallholders, according to advocacy group Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
- RAN’s investigation found that palm oil from these illegal plantations had wound up in the global supply chains of major brands like Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever, among others.

Conservationists decry palm oil giants’ exit from HCSA forest protection group
- Palm oil giants Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) and IOI Corporation Berhad have withdrawn from the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a mechanism that helps companies reach zero deforestation targets by distinguishing forest lands that should be protected from degraded lands that can be developed.
- The companies’ exit brings the total number of firms quitting the HCSA to four, with Wilmar International and Sime Darby Plantation stepping away from the committee in 2020.
- Environmentalists say this points to a startling industry trend in which industry giants are shirking responsibility for their harmful business practices.
- Both GAR and IOI say they remain committed to using the HCSA toolkit.

Orangutan death in Sumatra points to human-wildlife conflict, illegal trade
- The case of an orangutan that died shortly after its capture by farmers in northern Sumatra has highlighted the persistent problem of human-wildlife conflict and possibly even the illegal wildlife trade in Indonesia.
- The coffee farmers who caught the adult male orangutan on Jan. 20 denied ever hitting it, but a post-mortem showed a backbone fracture, internal bleeding, and other indications of blunt force trauma.
- Watchdogs say it’s possible illegal wildlife traders may have tried to take the orangutan from the farmers, with such traders known to frequent farms during harvest season in search of the apes that are drawn there for food.
- Conservationists say the case is a setback in their efforts to raise awareness about the need to protect critically endangered orangutans.

Indonesian palm oil billionaire gets 15 years for corruption
- A Jakarta court has sentenced palm oil tycoon Surya Darmadi to 15 years in prison for corruption that allowed him to establish illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia’s Riau province.
- The court also ordered him to pay more than $2.7 billion in fines and restitution for the environmental and social damage caused by the illegal plantations, believed to be the costliest corruption case in Indonesia’s history.
- Surya fled Indonesia in 2014 after being charged in another corruption case, and only surrendered to the authorities last year.
- Palm oil from his plantations was exported to six countries: India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Kenya, Italy and Singapore.

Forest loss may push tree-dependent marbled cats into threatened category
- Currently considered near threatened on the IUCN Red List, the little-known marbled cat may at greater risk from habitat disturbance than previously thought, a new study says.
- The study authors recommend escalating the species’ conservation status to the threatened category of vulnerable.
- Their findings are based on review of camera-trap data from across the species’ range, which found the small cat is an interior forest specialist and may change its daytime behavior to avoid humans.
- The authors say other semi-arboreal felids, such as the margay, may be similarly impacted.

Indonesia and Malaysia assail new EU ban on ‘dirty commodities’ trade
- The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have lambasted the EU regulation that will ban the trade of “dirty commodities,” including palm oil sourced from illegal plantations and deforestation.
- They argue that the regulation will harm the palm oil industry by increasing the cost of production.
- Activists, however, see the regulation as an opportunity for palm oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia to have their palm oil globally recognized as legal and sustainable.

Indonesia’s biofuel push must go beyond palm oil to reduce risk, experts say
- Indonesia faces deforestation, energy and security risks from its overreliance on palm oil as a feedstock for its biofuel transition program, observers say.
- The government will in February increase the biofuel blend in diesel to 35%, from the current 30%, with an eye on a 50:50 blend by 2025 — and eventually fossil-free biodiesel.
- But the program calls for a massive increase in palm oil production — and with yields largely stagnant, this will almost certainly mean clearing more land to establish new oil palm plantations.
- Experts say the government should diversify its sources of biofuel feedstock to curb the expansion of plantations into forests and to reduce the other risks that comes from relying on a single feedstock.

Indonesia prosecutors decry ‘lenient’ sentences in palm oil corruption case
- An Indonesian court has found a top trade ministry official, a prominent economist and three palm oil executives guilty for violating requirements to ensure supplies of palm oil for the domestic market.
- The five were convicted of conspiring to export crude palm oil to the international market, where prices are higher, rather than allocating it for the Indonesian market, where the government had imposed a price cap.
- Executives from three companies — the Permata Hijau Group, Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, and Musim Mas — were among those jailed.
- Prosecutors and anticorruption activists say the sentences and fines imposed by the court are far too lenient in light of the suffering they caused to the public; prosecutors say they will appeal for stronger sentences and higher fines.

For Indonesian smallholders, EU deforestation rule is a threat — and an opportunity
- Small farmers in Indonesia could be excluded from the European palm oil supply chain under a new EU deforestation regulation because they’re far from being able to comply, a new survey shows.
- The main challenges they face are in meeting traceability, legality and sustainability requirements, given the largely informal nature of transactions at the farm level and the lack of awareness about the need for documents like land titles and plantation certificates.
- The country’s main oil palm smallholder union has called on the EU to provide support for small farmers to be able to comply, such as setting a premium price for certified legal and deforestation-free palm oil.

Video: In Brazil’s Amazon, Quilombolas fight major palm oil firm for access to cemeteries
- Areas along the Acará River in northern Pará state are at the center of a six-year legal battle where Quilombolas — descendants of Afro-Brazilian runaway slaves — accuse Agropalma, the country’s second-largest palm oil exporter, of land-grabbing over their ancestral lands, including cemeteries, as revealed by Mongabay’s yearlong investigation.
- One of these areas is Our Lady of Battle Cemetery, where Mongabay witnessed in November 2021 Quilombolas celebrating the Day of the Dead for the first time in decades. They say access to the area was hampered since it became Agropalma’s “legal reserve” — the proportion of land that the Brazilian legislation obliges a private property owner to maintain in its natural state — in the 1980s.
- In this video, Mongabay exhibits what is called a “historic moment” and firsthand footage and interviews with Quilombolas going to this cemetery for the first time. This video also has impressive images of palm trees just a few steps from the graves at Livramento Cemetery, completely surrounded by Agropalma’s crops. Quilombolas accuse Agropalma of destroying three-quarters of its area to make way for its plantations; the company denies.
- “To support future lawsuits,” prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma.

Video: Stolen Quilombola cemeteries in the Amazon, and the probe that revealed it all
- Palm oil is a ubiquitous ingredient in products ranging from chocolate to cookies to lipstick, but its production in a corner of the Brazilian Amazon may be linked to a land grab from traditional communities, including cemeteries, a year-long investigation by Mongabay’s Karla Mendes has revealed.
- Prosecutors in Pará state have cited the Mongabay investigation in their procedures looking into the conflicts between Quilombola communities seeking recognition of their territory and areas occupied by Agropalma, the country’s second-largest palm oil exporter.
- In November 2021, Mendes went to Pará’s Alto Acará region to investigate these land-grabbing claims, and shares her reporting journey in this behind-the-scenes video, including witnessing a historical Day of the Dead celebration at a cemetery that the Quilombolas say they were locked out of by Agropalma.
- Mendes also witnessed another cemetery hemmed in by Agropalma’s oil palms, where Quilombolas accuse the company of planting the trees over the graves of their loved ones, and investigated other palm oil-linked issues reported by local communities, including water pollution and the threat of displacement from the paving of a trucking road.

Major Brazil palm oil exporter accused of fraud, land-grabbing over Quilombola cemeteries
- Agropalma, the only Brazilian company with the sustainability certificate issued by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), is accused of a wide range of land-grabbing allegations in Pará state.
- The claims allege that more than half of the 107,000 hectares (264,000 acres) registered by Agropalma was derived from fraudulent land titles and even the creation of a fake land registration bureau, which is at the center of a legal battle led by state prosecutors and public defenders.
- Quilombola communities say that part of the area occupied by Agropalma overlaps with their ancestral land, including two cemeteries visited by Mongabay. In one of them, residents claim that just one-quarter of the cemetery remains and that the company planted palm trees on top of the graves, which the company denies.
- There are also other financial interests in the land at stake, researchers say, pointing to the company’s moves into bauxite mining and the sale of carbon credits in the areas subject to litigation, further intensifying the disputes.

Report calls on palm oil firms to make up for nearly 1m hectares of forest loss
- Palm oil companies across Southeast Asia are liable for the recovery of a Puerto Rico-sized area of forest because of their history of environmental harm, a new report shows.
- The Earthqualizer Foundation derived the figure of 877,314 hectares (2.17 million acres) based on the deforestation that the companies continued to carry out after they became aware that an increasing number of buyers had adopted sustainability policies.
- The report also calls on buyers who bought from these suppliers to shoulder some of the liability, which it said could count toward the forest restoration goals pledged by many of the buyers, including Nestlé, Kellogg’s and Unilever.
- The Earthqualizer report highlights some palm oil companies that are already undertaking recovery initiatives, but notes that these are few and far between, and any progress will need to be assessed over the long term.

Indonesia’s orangutans declining amid ‘lax’ and ‘laissez-faire’ law enforcement
- The widespread failure by Indonesian law enforcers to crack down on crimes against orangutans is what’s allowing them to be killed at persistently high rates, a new study suggests.
- It characterizes as “remarkably lax” and “laissez-faire” the law enforcement approach when applied to crimes against orangutans as compared to the country’s other iconic wildlife species, such as tigers.
- Killing was the most prevalent crime against orangutans, the study found when analyzing 2,229 reports from 2007-2019, followed by capture, possession or sale of infants, harm or capture of wild adult orangutans due to conflicts, and attempted poaching not resulting in death.
- The study authors call for stronger deterrence and law enforcement rather than relying heavily on rescue, release and translocation strategies that don’t solve the core crisis of net loss of wild orangutans.

Following the impacts of palm oil alliance: Violated regulations and penalty proceedings
- The journalistic partnership behind a 2021 database gathering information on the penalties for environmental violations given to palm oil producers in Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras has added two more countries: Costa Rica and Brazil
- In these six Latin American nations, between 2010 and 2021, at least 298 cases were opened against 170 companies and individuals involved in the palm oil industry, according to the details offered by authorities in response to requests from the journalists working on the database.
- The handing over of incomplete documents and lack of information are, once again, a common feature of how authorities across the region respond to journalists’ requests. In 181 cases, it was impossible to understand the stage of the penalty proceedings, while in 42 cases there was no concrete information on whether a sanction or fine had been applied. In 47 instances, the exact nature of the environmental violation committed by the target of the proceedings was not specified.

More than half of palm species may be threatened with extinction, study finds
- Using novel machine-learning techniques, researchers found that of the 1,889 species of palms with enough data to investigate, more than half (56%) may be threatened with extinction.
- Researchers hope that the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, paired with data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, can speed up preliminary evaluations of a species’ conservation status, reduce costs, and avoid bias toward vertebrate animals.
- The study found that nearly half of the functionally distinct species were threatened, as well as nearly one-third of species used by humans (at least 185 palm species). The study also identified high-priority regions for palm conservation including Borneo, Hawai‘i, Jamaica, Madagascar, New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Philippines, Sulawesi, Vanuatu, and Vietnam.
- Like many other threatened plant and animal species, the greatest risk to palms is habitat destruction from agricultural and urban expansion.

Sustainability pledges help Indonesia produce palm oil with less deforestation
- Deforestation that’s associated with palm oil has fallen by 82% over the past decade in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity, according to a new analysis.
- This is despite a rise in palm oil prices, which historically has been associated with a rise in deforestation as land is cleared for new plantings.
- Researchers attribute the continued decline in palm oil deforestation to the rising adoption of zero-deforestation commitments as well as public supply chain reporting by companies.

Indonesia amnesties 75 companies operating illegally inside forest areas
- As many as 75 companies that operate illegally inside forest areas in Indonesia have been pardoned under an amnesty scheme.
- These companies paid fines totaling 222.7 billion rupiah ($14.93 million) to receive the pardons.
- Hundreds more plantation and mining companies will be pardoned, officials say, as the government has identified at least 616 companies operating illegally inside forest areas.

As a Cameroon palm oil firm gets RSPO certified, it’s also found in breach
- A verification assessment launched by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has acknowledged breaches around the plantations of Cameroonian palm oil producer Socapalm.
- Despite allegations against Socapalm and subsidiaries of holding company Socfin in other countries, the RSPO recently issued certification status to multiple plantations, saying verification and certification don’t contradict each other.
- Local and international organizations are calling for Socapalm’s RSPO certifications to be rescinded due to the ongoing irregularities.

Human pressures strain Lake Tanganyika’s biodiversity and water quality
- As fishing pressure has increased on Lake Tanganyika, its level has also been rising, inundating shoreline communities.
- Sedimentation as a result of farming, infrastructure projects and deforestation is causing the water level to rise and the lake to expand.
- This has not led to an increase in fish populations, however, and what little data exist suggest that the lake’s overall biodiversity–probably including hippos and Nile crocodiles–is declining.
- An EU-funded plan to coordinate management of the lake by all countries that share it aims to address some of the knowledge gaps, but is itself hobbled by budget constraints.

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.

Nearness to roads and palm oil mills a key factor in peatland clearing by smallholders
- A new study in Indonesia’s palm oil capital of Riau has found that proximity to roads and processing mills are key factors determining whether small farmers expand their cultivation into peat swamp forests.
- This is because of the need to transport freshly harvested palm fruit to mills quickly: without the transport infrastructure that large plantations enjoy, easy access to roads and mills is paramount for smallholders.
- The study also identified zoning and geographic factors as other important drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion into peatland, along with the presence of large concessions.
- The study’s authors say the findings can help inform policies targeting areas of peatland for protection, and on helping small farmers improve their income without clearing more land to plant oil palms.

Photos: Meet the Indonesians on the front lines of human-elephant conflict in Sumatra
- At the northern tip of Sumatra, villagers deal with herds of elephants entering their villages and eating their crops.
- Incidents of human-wildlife conflict have intensified as more of the elephants’ habitat is razed for oil palm plantations and other developments.
- In the village of Cot Girek, locals have formed their own patrol team to head off these incursions.

‘Chased from every side’: Sumatran elephants pinned down by forest loss
- Sumatran elephants in Indonesia’s North Aceh district are being increasingly pinned down in shrinking patches of forest amid the ongoing destruction of their habitat, primarily for oil palm plantations.
- This is driving an increase in human-elephant conflict, with the animals forced into more frequent encounters with villagers, who resent them for destroying their crops and homes.
- Conservationists say deforestation in the district overlaps with the elephants’ migration routes and could grow worse under local government policies.

Delectable but destructive: Tracing chocolate’s environmental life cycle
- Chocolate in all its delicious forms is one of the world’s favorite treats. Per capita consumption in the U.S. alone averages around 9 kilograms (19.8 pounds) per year. The industry is worth more than $90 billion globally.
- Ingredients — including cocoa, palm oil and soy — flow from producer nations in Africa, Asia and South America to processors and consumers everywhere. But a recent study reveals that large amounts of these commodities are linked to indirect supply chains, falling outside sustainability programs and linked to untraced deforestation.
- Key producers of these commodities — mostly West African countries for cocoa, Brazil for soy, and Indonesia for palm oil — have faced extensive deforestation due to agricultural production, and will likely face more in future as chocolate demand increases.
- Production, transport and consumption of chocolate also have their own environmental impacts, some of which remain relatively understudied. But researchers inside and outside the industry are working to better trace chocolate deforestation, and to make processing, shipping and packaging more sustainable.

Deforestation in Borneo threatens one in four orangutans, study says
- Deforestation in Borneo will destroy the habitat of more than 26,000 orangutans, a quarter of the population of the critically endangered species, by 2032, a new study says.
- Researchers used historical data and modeling with known drivers of deforestation to project that orangutan habitat a tenth the size of Italy could be lost over the next decade.
- Forests at highest risk of deforestation include those near areas that have already experienced forest loss, as well as industrial timber and oil palm plantation concessions.
- The study suggests the largest immediate conservation gains could come from curbing deforestation in and around plantation landscapes, through efforts such as zero-deforestation pledges, sustainability certification, ecosystem restoration, and a halt on clearing land.

Palm oil producer mired in legal troubles still razing Sumatran forest
- A palm oil company has resumed clearing forest in its concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth where tigers, orangutans and rhinos coexist.
- Analysis of satellite imagery by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows the company, PT Cemerlang Abadi (CA), cleared 309 hectares (761 acres) of secondary and regenerating forests between September 2021 and February 2022.
- RAN says it’s possible that palm oil from trees grown on this deforested land may have entered the global supply chain, as CA isn’t blacklisted by any of the major brands or traders that buy palm oil.

Study assesses wildlife exposure to rat poison on oil palm plantations
- Rodents can pose a financial risk to oil palm plantation managers as they can cause significant damage to crops, potentially reducing yields by up to 10%.
- Anticoagulant rodenticides are often used to eradicate or manage rodent populations.
- A recent study assessed the risk of exposure to wildlife species known to hunt on palm plantations.
- Little is known about exposure and the potential risk to a wide variety of species, the study warns, and more research is needed to fill these knowledge gaps.

As dry season starts in Indonesia, risk of fires — and haze — looms
- There’s a degree of risk that Southeast Asia may see the return of transboundary haze this year from forest fires in Indonesia, according to a new report by a Singaporean think tank.
- The key driver of that risk is the currently high price of palm oil on the world market, which could pose an incentive for farmers in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil, to expand their plantations, including by clearing land with fire.
- In anticipation of the dry season, which starts in July, some local governments in Indonesia are putting in place policies to prevent fires, including sanctions for companies using fire to clear their concessions.

Indonesian palm oil audit a chance to clean up ‘very dirty’ industry
- The Indonesian government plans to audit all palm oil companies operating in the country, in a bid to tackle an ongoing shortage and high prices of cooking oil.
- Experts attribute the crisis to the fact that the country’s palm oil industry is dominated by a small number of big companies.
- These companies have large concessions, in excess of the limit imposed by the government, allowing them to wield outsized power to dictate prices, policies and supplies.
- Analysts say the audit should address this land ownership issue, as well as other problems that plague the industry, such as lack of clear data and transparency.

Second Indonesian province moves to retake forests from palm oil companies
- The government of Indonesia’s Papua province has recommended that district officials revoke the permits of 35 of the 54 oil palm concessions operating there.
- These concessions cover a combined 522,397 hectares (1.29 million acres) of land, and are being targeted for revocation because of a range of administrative violations by the license holders.
- If revoked, the large swaths of forests still standing inside these concessions could be saved from being cleared and converted into plantations, and returned to Indigenous communities, activists say.
- The move by the Papua government mirrors a round of revocations ordered last year by the government of neighboring West Papua province, which has also successfully warded off lawsuits filed by affected companies.

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.

In Indonesian Borneo, a succession of extractive industries multiplies impacts, social fractures
- Much of the landscape of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province has been transformed, its formerly vast forests razed for logging, monocrop agriculture and open-cast coal mining.
- A recently published study analyzes how waves of extractive industries have affected the inhabitants of one village in the province
- The cumulative impacts of these industries were found to be severe, but also to vary depending on multiple factors including ethnicity, gender, wealth and age. Women, young people and recently arrived migrants were found to be disproportionately affected.

Satellites show deforestation surging in Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo National Park
- Tesso Nilo National Park is a refuge for Sumatran wildlife, including critically endangered tigers and elephants.
- But the park lost 67% of its primary forest between 2010 and 2021, with the deforestation rate in 2021 nearly triple that of 2020 and the highest it has been since 2016. Satellite imagery shows further clearing of primary forest in 2022.
- Much of the deforestation of Tesso Nilo is due to the illegal development of large-scale plantations to grow oil palm and other tree crops.
- In early 2022, park officials distributed a circular to surrounding communities that reiterated the ban on plantation agriculture in the park, but conservationists say more concerted enforcement action is necessary to curb deforestation.

Slick operator: Indonesian cooking oil probe may spread to biodiesel industry
- A top economist in Indonesia has been charged for his alleged role in helping palm oil companies export the commodity instead of selling it domestically — a practice blamed for a shortage of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- The arrest of Lin Che Wei, who prosecutors allege was “involved in every palm oil policy,” also puts the spotlight on the state palm oil fund that he helped create and that disproportionately channels subsidies to many of the same companies implicated in the cooking oil scandal.
- President Joko Widodo has called for a thorough investigation to “find out who is playing a game here,” but the palm oil lobby has pushed back against what it says is a vilification of the industry — even threatening to stop producing cooking oil for the domestic market.
- The cooking oil shortage has battered domestic trust in Indonesia’s powerful palm oil industry, whose reputation abroad has long been tarnished by its links to deforestation, labor abuses, and conflicts with Indigenous and local communities.

In oil palm-dominated Malaysia, agroforestry orchards are oases of bird life: Study
- Demand for agricultural land threatens Peninsular Malaysia’s remnant native forest cover, and with it, Malaysia’s rich bird life.
- A recent study has found that agroforestry and polyculture plantations — those with a greater number of tree species — provide a more complex habitat for bird life and are better structured to support biodiversity.
- The study suggests that the introduction of fruit trees that encourage bird life into monoculture croplands would benefit farmers through the restoration of ecological functions, such as reducing the need for pest control through bird diet without compromising yield.

Indonesia to probe scale of tax-dodging illegal oil palm plantations
- Indonesian lawmakers have demanded an accounting of the illegal palm oil plantations that continue to operate in the country, after the government revealed it had missed out on at least $3 billion in taxes from these companies in 2021.
- That figure itself is likely an underestimate, with a previous audit putting the lost revenue from just one province, Riau, at $7.4 billion.
- Lawmakers have given the environment ministry until the end of July to collect data on illegal plantations, including the identities of their owners, in Riau and Central Kalimantan provinces; the two provinces account for two-thirds of the illegal plantation area in Indonesia.
- Experts say uncovering the true identities of the plantation owners is the first step to addressing the problem, and should be followed up by an evaluation and improvement in the management of the palm oil industry.

With ban on palm oil exports, Indonesia reaps condemnation and praise
- Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, announced it would ban exports of the commodity starting April 28 to address a domestic cooking oil shortage.
- The move has elicited a mixed response, with economists and a leading oil palm farmers’ union saying it will destroy the lucrative industry, including hurting small farmers.
- But another farmers’ group says the move is a necessary step toward a wider reform of the industry to devolve control from a handful of conglomerates to small farmers.

Colombian Indigenous community waits in poverty as courts weigh ownership of ancestral land
- In 2009 the Guahibo Indigenous community of El Trompillo was forced to move from what members say is their ancestral land.
- The official owners of the land are reportedly connected to former senator Alfonso Mattos, and plantation companies affiliated with Mattos have been developed in the territory; sources say they are polluting the land, water and air.
- El Trompillo community members hope the higher courts rule in their favor and return them to their land – but in the meantime they live in cramped, impoverished conditions.
- This story is a collaboration between Mongabay Latam and Rutas del Conflicto in Colombia.

Indonesians, too reliant on palm oil, should go back to their roots (commentary)
- Scarce supplies and high prices for cooking oil have sparked recent widespread public criticism in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- Yet before the introduction of the African oil palm into Indonesia, communities across the archipelago were producing the oil they needed from coconuts.
- Mongabay Indonesia’s Taufik Wijaya recalls this practice from his childhood in South Sumatra, when the Western-influenced diet of deep-fried food hadn’t yet taken hold.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

EU response to palm oil is opportunity, not threat (commentary)
- Policy moves by the EU to more closely scrutinize palm oil over its links to deforestation have been portrayed as a smear campaign in Indonesia and Malaysia, the top two producers of the commodity.
- But for Indonesia, this presents an opportunity to devise more careful and detailed definitions of criteria for sustainable palm oil, covering all relevant environmental, social, labor and human rights issues, argues Andre Barahamin, a forest campaigner at the NGO Kaoem Telapak.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Deforestation for palm oil falls in Southeast Asia, but is it a trend or a blip?
- Deforestation for oil palm cultivation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea dropped in 2021 to its lowest level since 2017, according to a new analysis by Chain Reaction Research (CRR).
- This marks the second straight year of declining palm-linked deforestation in this region, which produces more than 80% of the world’s palm oil, despite the price of the commodity hitting all-time highs last year and this year.
- Researchers attribute the decline in deforestation to an increasing number of companies adopting no-deforestation policies, and smaller companies without such commitments simply running out of forest to clear.
- But concerns over future deforestation persist as the Indonesian government ramps up its palm-oil based biodiesel program, which sources some of its palm oil from companies that are known deforesters.

Probe finds palm oil firm illegally clearing forest in Sumatra wildlife haven
- An investigation by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) indicates that a palm oil company in Sumatra has been clearing forests illegally since at least 2016.
- The extent of the clearing by PT Nia Yulided Bersaudara (NYB), nearly two and a half times the size of New York City’s Central Park, makes it the top deforester among companies that have an oil palm concession in Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem.
- RAN’s investigation found the company’s logging activities and timber royalty payments aren’t registered in government databases, and its initial permit was granted under suspicious circumstances by a politician related to the NYB president.
- Yet despite these red flags, NYB has so far managed to evade government measures to crack down on licensing irregularities and environmental violations in the palm oil industry, including the mass revocation of permits announced at the start of this year.

Banning high-deforestation palm oil has limited impact on saving forests: Study
- Import bans on palm oil produced through deforestation haven’t had as strong an effect in preventing forest loss as might be expected, according to a new study.
- The paper’s modeling looked at what impact restrictions in Europe on imports of high-deforestation palm oil from Indonesia would have had from 2000-2015.
- They found these restrictions would have reduced deforestation by just 1.6% per year, and emissions by 1.91% per year compared to what actually occurred.
- The study authors and other researchers say the findings underscore the point that demand-side restrictions are only one tool in addressing commodity-driven deforestation, and should be part of a wider suite of incentives and disincentives.

Colombian palm oil company under investigation for polluting rivers
- Oro Rojo began extracting palm oil in 2013 and was granted three environmental permits by environmental authority Corporación Autónoma de Santander (CAS), two of which are currently under investigation.
- Complaints have been filed alleging Oro Rojo discharged waste into nearby waterways.
- According CAS, the company has also been fined for violations relating to air pollution.

When Indonesia retook land from developers, it gave them a solid case to sue
- The Indonesian government’s decision to revoke permits for plantation firms to operate in forest areas could lead to lawsuits filed by the companies, environmental law experts say.
- The permits were rescinded at the start of the year, not because of any environmental violations, but rather because the concession holders were deemed to be moving too slowly in exploiting the resources.
- But the unilateral revocations have set up an unprecedented legal mess, observers and industry representatives say, with no clarity over whether a company that has lost a permit can still operate on the basis of the other permits it still holds.
- Contributing to the confusion is the government’s persistent refusal to publicly release any data on the permits and the companies that hold them, in direct violation of a Supreme Court ruling ordering it to do so.

Indonesian government says no to reclassifying oil palm estates as forests
- The Indonesian government has rejected a proposal made by a prominent university to reclassify oil palms as a forest crop.
- The proposal was ostensibly meant to resolve the problem of illegal plantations operating inside forest areas, and would have redefined plantations as forests, and new plantings as reforestation.
- The environment ministry says it has no plans to adopt such a plan because it has its own program, the social forestry scheme, to get local communities to switch from illegal oil palm plantations to more sustainable, and profitable, agroforestry systems.
- A decade earlier the government had tried to reclassify oil palms as forest crops, but the effort lasted just a month before it was scrapped in the face of widespread criticism.

Can the little-known tamanu tree replace palm oil in Indonesia’s biofuel bid?
- Government researchers in Indonesia believe oil from the tamanu tree (Calophyllum inophyllum) could serve an alternative feedstock for biofuel to palm oil.
- They say the plant has shown the ability to grow in burned areas and former mining sites, as well as in waterlogged peat soils.
- Oil from the tree, native to tropical Asia, has been used for centuries across the region as a salve for wounds and scars, and in lotions and balms.
- With the Indonesian government’s ambitious biodiesel program requiring the establishment of more oil palm plantations, alternative feedstocks like tamanu could help stave off the associated deforestation.

Even degraded forests are more ecologically valuable than none, study shows
- From providing clean air and water to temperature regulation, degraded tropical forests provide ecosystem services valued by Indigenous communities in Malaysia, according to new research.
- Researchers found the ecosystem services most highly prioritized by communities also tended to be ecologically valuable ones, highlighting common interests between Indigenous groups and conservation that can be tapped through community-based projects.
- The study comes amid a government-led push to convert hundreds of thousands of hectares of degraded forests in Sabah into timber plantations.
- Forests, even logged ones, provide unique services tied to Indigenous culture, such as hunting activities, that cannot be replaced by timber plantations, researchers said.

Polluting with impunity: Palm oil companies flout regulations in Ecuador
- Community residents and researchers alike decry what they say is dangerous pollution leaching into soil and waterways from oil palm plantations and palm oil extraction mills in Ecuador.
- In July 2020, Ecuador’s government passed a law to strengthen and develop the production, commercialization, extraction, export and industrialization of palm oil and its derivatives.
- The law also prohibits oil palm plantations from being established within zones where communities’ water sources are located, and requires the existence of native vegetation buffers between plantations and water bodies.
- But critics say the regulatory portion of the law has been largely toothless and that the government has turned a blind eye to the social and environmental costs of the country’s rapid plantation expansion.

Community in Ecuador punished for trying to stop alleged palm oil pollution
- A legal loophole allowed palm oil companies in Ecuador to establish plantations on ancestral land that belongs to small communities.
- Community residents say that agricultural chemicals and waste from plantations and palm oil processing mills is polluting the water sources on which they depend.
- In an effort to stop the contamination of their water and the degradation of their land, residents of the community of Barranquilla spent three months occupying the access road to plantations surrounding their village in 2020.
- In retaliation, the company that owns and operates the plantations, Energy & Palma, sued four members of the community for lost profits; in Sep. 2021, courts ruled in the company’s favor and ordered the four to pay $151,000 to the company.

Have we reached peak palm oil? (commentary)
- Palm oil prices have rocketed since the outbreak of COVID-19, but the surge in deforestation that usually accompanies this isn’t happening.
- Mark Gregory asks whether the market for one of the biggest drivers of tropical deforestation in the world is waning, and what it means for the fight to protect forests.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Raid against Sumatran official uncovers use of slave labor on oil palm farm
- A district head in Sumatra could face human trafficking charges after he was found to have imprisoned 48 men at his compound who worked for no pay at his oil palm plantation.
- While police and other government authorities have been reluctant to declare this a case of modern-day slave labor, advocacy groups say the evidence against Terbit Rencana Perangin Angin, the head of Langkat district in North Sumatra province, is indisputable.
- Terbit also faces charges of corruption (the raid on his compound was associated with a bribery allegation), and illegal wildlife possession (the raid also uncovered an orangutan and other protected species being kept as pets).
- While the case has captured national attention, watchdog groups say the problem of labor violations in the palm oil industry are widespread, and have called for the swift passage of a bill to boost protections for workers.

Indonesia is clearing less forest for palm oil, but it’s still not sustainable, activists say
- Clearing of forests in Indonesia to make way for oil palm plantations has decreased in recent years, a new analysis shows.
- It found that deforestation was associated with 3.1 million hectares (7.7 million acres) of plantations established since 2000, out of a total of 16.2 million hectares (40 million acres) planted as of 2019.
- Auriga, the environmental NGO that carried out the analysis, says this gives the bulk of palm oil producers a case to make that their palm oil is deforestation-free and should be labeled as sustainable.
- However, a Greenpeace campaigner says being deforestation-free is only one aspect of sustainability, and adds many oil palm companies remain far from socially sustainable, given the land conflicts in which they’re mired against local and Indigenous communities.

Spurred by investor-friendly law, palm oil firms sue to get licenses back
- Two palm oil companies in Indonesia’s West Papua province are suing the local government to win back their permits that were revoked last year.
- The new filings are the latest wave of litigation in the province since authorities across West Papua’s eight districts revoked the permits of 16 palm oil companies over administrative violations.
- Lawsuits filed by three other companies were thrown out last December and earlier this month, leaving opponents of the palm oil industry hopeful of a similar outcome in the latest case.
- The staunchest opponents of the companies are the Indigenous communities who have long sought official recognition of their ancestral rights to the land and forests that fall within the oil palm concessions.

Proposal could redefine palm oil-driven deforestation as reforestation in Indonesia
- Indonesia’s leading forestry university is making the case for oil palms to be classified as a forest crop — a move that would see existing plantations counted as forest, and the establishment of new ones as reforestation.
- The proposal from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) also argues that oil palm plantations should count toward Indonesia’s carbon sequestration goals, despite studies pointing out that clearing rainforest for oil palms leads to vast amounts of emissions
- The move has been criticized by other academics and NGOs, who say it could pave the way for the unfettered clearing of Indonesia’s remaining forests.
- They also say that, if accepted by the government, the plan would legitimize the oil palm plantations currently operating illegally inside forest areas.

Across Latin America, palm oil violations abound — with little accountability
- Palm oil producers across four countries in Latin America are able to violate environmental safeguards with relative impunity, according to a recent investigation.
- A team of Mongabay Latam journalists, Agencia Ocote (Guatemala), Contracorriente (Honduras) and La Barra Espaciadora (Ecuador) made 70 requests for information to Colombian, Ecuadorian, Honduran and Guatemalan authorities about environmental sanction processes launched against oil palm producers between 2010 and 2020.
- Despite the difficulty of obtaining official information, the investigation revealed that the expansion of oil palm as a profitable industry that provides substantial employment in the region often wins out over complaints about the industry’s environmental problems by communities and NGOs

Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber
- As rainforest throughout much of the country has disappeared, Nigeria’s Oluwa Forest Reserve has been a sanctuary for many species, including Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees – the rarest chimpanzee subspecies.
- But Oluwa itself has come under increasing deforestation pressure in recent years, losing 14% of its remaining primary forest between 2002 and 2020.
- Oluwa’s deforestation rate appears to be increasing, with several large areas of forest loss occurring in 2021– including in one of the last portions of the reserve known to harbor chimps.
- Agriculture and timber extraction are the main drivers of deforestation in Oluwa; smallholders looking to eke out an existence continue to move into the reserve and illegally clear forest and hunt animals for bushmeat, while plantation companies are staking claims to government-granted concessions.

‘Land mafia’ makes its mark in a Sumatran village’s fight against oil palm firm
- A government agency in Sumatra issued land titles to villagers in 2020, only to rescind them this year on the grounds that a palm oil company already holds the concession for that land.
- The flip-flop has revealed a litany of irregularities in the land-titling process and strengthened suspicions of a “land mafia” at work securing community-occupied lands for big businesses.
- The National Land Agency says more than 100 of its officials are suspected of being part of this mafia, but has done little to address the problem, and continues to violate a Supreme Court ruling that could bring greater transparency to land ownership across Indonesia.
- Activists say the land mafia have been emboldened by the government’s pro-business policies, including directives to make it easier for investors to secure land for projects.

Mongabay’s coverage of palm oil in 2021
- In 2021, supply shortages partially caused by lockdowns and other COVID-19 measures sent the price of palm oil higher than ever before, reflecting a continued strong global demand for the commodity.
- In March, Mongabay published the results of an 18-month investigation into the impact of palm oil cultivation in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Mongabay also covered the end of Indonesia’s moratorium on permits for new plantations, and investigated allegations of abuse and land grabs at a plantation in Nigeria.

Indigenous leader sues over Borneo natural capital deal
- An Indigenous leader in Sabah is suing the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo over an agreement signing away the rights to monetize the natural capital coming from the state’s forests to a foreign company.
- Civil society and Indigenous organizations say local communities were not consulted or asked to provide input prior to the agreement’s signing on Oct. 28.
- Further questions have arisen about whether the company, Hoch Standard, that secured the rights under the agreement has the required experience or expertise necessary to implement the terms of the agreement.

Indonesian peat restoration has more benefits than it costs, study finds
- The benefits of effective Indonesian peatland restoration — blocking drainage canals to restore water levels and reestablishing vegetation cover — will outweigh the cost of restoration, according to a new study.
- Following the severe fire season of 2015 that destroyed vast swaths of peatland, the administration of President Joko Widodo has targeted restoring 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) of degraded peatland across the archipelago.
- The authors of the new study used satellite data and models to estimate that, if completed, peatland restoration would have contributed significant reductions for 2004-2015 in fire losses and damages, CO2 emissions, PM2.5 particle emissions, health-related losses, and land-cover losses.
- Indonesia has 21 million hectares of peatland that stores an estimated 57 million metric tons of carbon, roughly 55% of the world’s tropical peatland carbon.

Holding agriculture and logging at bay in the Congo peatlands
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin are perhaps the most intact in the tropics, but threats from logging, agriculture and extractive industries could cause their rapid degradation, scientists say.
- In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that it was planning to end a moratorium on the issuance of logging concessions that had been in place for nearly two decades.
- The move raised concerns among conservation groups, who say the moratorium should remain in place to protect the DRC’s portion of the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Today, timber concession boundaries overlap with the peatlands, and though some companies say they won’t cut trees growing on peat, environmental advocates say that any further issuance of logging concessions in the DRC would be irresponsible.

‘Forests will disappear again,’ activists warn as Indonesia ends plantation freeze
- With the Indonesian government refusing to renew a three-year ban on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations, experts are warning of a deforestation free-for-all.
- The end of the moratorium means companies can once again apply to develop new plantations, including clearing forests to do.
- This coincides with a rally in the crude palm oil price due to tightening supply, which activists say portends a possible surge in deforestation.
- According to one analysis, rainforests spanning an area half the size of California, or 21 million hectares (52 million acres), are at risk of being cleared now that the moratorium is no longer in place.

Lack of resolution mechanisms allow palm oil conflicts to fester in Indonesia
- An analysis of land conflicts involving palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity, shows the country lacks effective mechanisms for addressing these problems.
- The analysis of 150 cases by Indonesian and Dutch academics found that existing channels for addressing conflict between villagers and plantation firms generally “fail to produce meaningful results for the affected communities.”
- They also found that most of the violence documented in these conflicts was perpetrated by the police or security forces affiliated with the palm oil companies, and that community protest leaders frequently faced arrest and imprisonment on dubious charges.
- They called on the government to set up impartial “mediation boards” or “conflict resolution desks” at the provincial or district level, something the government says it is looking into but can’t commit to just yet.

At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
- The Okomu Oil Palm Company is majority-owned by Socfin, a French-Belgian multinational that operates plantations across West and Central Africa.
- Okomu’s concession lies inside a forest reserve that was gazetted by British colonial authorities in 1912 and that was once among the most pristine rainforests in Nigeria, home to forest elephants, leopards and chimpanzees.
- For more than a decade, Okomu has been in conflict with some of the communities inside its concession over land ownership and usage rights in the reserve.
- In early 2020, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified Okomu’s main estate after an audit by the consultancy firm SCS; campaigners say the firm failed to perform adequate due diligence and that Okomu’s certification is an example of the RSPO’s shortcomings.

Report: Orangutans and their habitat in Indonesia need full protection now
- A new report underscores the urgency of protecting Indonesia’s orangutans and conserving their remaining habitat, warning that Asia’s only great ape is in crisis.
- The report from the Environmental Investigation Agency says the Indonesian government has systematically failed to protect orangutan habitat, enforce existing wildlife laws, or reverse the decline of the three orangutan species.
- “For decades, Indonesia has prioritized industry and profit over environmental health and biodiversity protection, and orangutans have paid the price,” said EIA policy analyst Taylor Tench.
- The report calls for protecting all orangutan habitat (much of which occurs in oil palm and logging concessions), halting a dam project in the only habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, and recognizing Indigenous claims to forests adjacent to orangutan habitat.

Indonesian official busted over alleged bribe for palm oil permit
- A district head in Riau, the heartland of Indonesia’s palm oil industry, has been arrested for allegedly taking bribes from a plantation company.
- The 2 billion ($141,000) payment was allegedly in exchange for the district head, Andi Putra, facilitating the extension of a permit for palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari.
- Activists say the case is only the tip of the iceberg, with Riau blanketed in illegal plantations and plagued by corrupt officials.
- They are also worried that corruption in the palm oil industry will become more rampant in the future due to the weakening of the national anti-corruption agency.

Palm oil firm that dried out its land held not liable for fires that followed
- Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a ruling clearing a palm oil company of responsibility for fires in its concession in Central Kalimantan province.
- Environmental experts say this flies in the face of evidence showing that the firm didn’t have adequate equipment to tackle fires and that the fires started in areas it had recently cleared and drained.
- They warn the verdict sets a worrying precedent for future prosecutions of companies with fires on their concessions, and counters Indonesia’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land use.

One in five hectares of oil palm in Indonesia is illegal, report shows
- A fifth of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, are operating illegally inside forest areas that are off-limits to commercial agricultural activity, a new report from Greenpeace shows.
- Half of these plantations are operated by corporations, and the other half by smallholders, indicating that nearly a third of registered palm oil companies in Indonesia have illegal plantations.
- These illegal plantations occupy protected areas such as national parks and UNESCO World Heritage Site, and overlap with the habitat of threatened wildlife like orangutans and tigers.
- Many of the companies identified in the report are members of so-called sustainability certification schemes like the RSPO and ISPO, pointing to a failure by these initiatives to address unsustainable practices.

Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
- Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, signed a nature conservation agreement on Oct. 28 with a group of foreign companies — apparently without the meaningful participation of Indigenous communities.
- The agreement, with the consultancy Tierra Australia and a private equity-backed funder from Singapore, calls for the marketing of carbon and other ecosystem services to companies looking, for example, to buy credits to offset their emissions.
- The deal involves more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of forest, which would be restored and protected from mining, logging and industrial agriculture for the next 100-200 years.
- But land rights experts have raised concerns about the lack of consultation with communities living in and around these forests in the negotiations to this point.

Data-driven platform looks to clear up fog of palm oil traceability
- A new web-based monitoring platform, Palmoil.io, has been launched to help the palm oil industry fully trace its product back to its origin to make sure that it’s legally sourced and sustainably produced.
- Existing supply chain monitoring efforts remain fragmented, expensive and uneven as they struggle to trace palm oil product through a complex web of plantations and mills.
- Palmoil.io aims to address this by collecting and analyzing data on more than 2,000 palm mills, 480 refineries and crushers, and 400 high-risk plantations.
- The large, and growing, volume of data will enables Palmoil.io to trace palm oil product to its source and determine whether it’s associated with comes from deforestation, as well as human rights and labor violations or not.

Indigenous Papuans won their forest back from a palm oil firm, but still lack land title
- Indigenous villagers in Sorong district, West Papua province, have for years resisted the arrival of the palm oil industry into their territory, yet still saw their ancestral forests signed away by the government for an oil palm concession.
- Earlier this year, the Sorong district government revoked the concession, citing a litany of violations by the concession holder.
- The villagers have welcomed the move, but are demanding the government take further action to ensure the legal recognition of their rights to their customary forests.
- They say it’s important to prevent the customary forests from being given away to other companies in the future.

Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Recent satellite data has shown a marked increase in the loss of tree cover in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain province.
- Many of the alerts were near new or existing logging roads, indicating that the forest loss may be due to timber harvesting.
- Oil palm production is also growing, altering the face of a province that had more than 98% of its primary forest remaining less than a decade ago.
- The surge in land use changes has affected not only the environment in East New Britain, but also the lives of the members of the communities who depend on it.

Green groups call for scrapping of $300m loan offer for Borneo road project
- The Asian Development Bank is considering a $300 million loan proposal from the Indonesian government to fund a road project in Borneo.
- The 280-kilometer (170-mile) project across North and East Kalimantan provinces are designed to boost economic growth and further the integration of the Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil industries.
- Environmental groups around the world have urged the ADB to impose stricter environmental and social requirements for the project to reduce its expected impacts on the environment and the Indigenous communities living in the region.
- Indigenous peoples like the Dayak rely on the forests staying intact, as do critically endangered species such as Bornean orangutans.

Fate of Malaysian forests stripped of protection points to conservation stakes
- In the seven years since Jemaluang and Tenggaroh were struck from Malaysia’s list of permanent forest reserves, the two forests in Johor state have experienced large-scale deforestation.
- The clearance is reportedly happening on land privately owned by the sultan of Johor, the head of the state, calling into question the effectiveness of the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan, a nationwide conservation initiative the two reserves had originally been part of.
- The CFS Master Plan is currently being revised, with experts seeing the review as a chance to change what has been a largely toothless program, beset by conflicts of interest between federal and state authorities.
- As the revision nears completion, Jemaluang and Tenggaroh highlight how much has been lost, but also what’s at stake for Malaysia’s forests, wildlife and residents.

In a sea of oil palms, even monitor lizards need islands of natural forest
- Forest patches in and around oil palm plantations are crucial for the survival of Asian water monitor lizards, a generalist species that usually thrives in human-impacted landscapes.
- A new study focused on the Kinabatangan floodplain in Malaysian Borneo found significantly more lizards in natural forest near oil palm plantations than in the plantations themselves.
- The researchers suggest lizards are particularly dependent on forest patches for breeding sites and shelter.
- The study adds to a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the vital role of natural forest in and around oil palm plantations and reaffirms the importance of buffer zones and habitat corridors that enable animals to negotiate oil palm-dominated landscapes.

Loss of oil palm permits leaves Papuan villages uncertain and fearful
- Some Indigenous communities in West Papua who agreed to lease their lands to palm oil companies for the promise of infrastructure development and better livelihoods, have been left in limbo by a government decision to revoke the companies’ permits for various violations.
- The communities say all they want is a better life, and that while they don’t necessarily defend palm oil, they point out that the government has done little to build roads or provide electricity for their villages.
- Some of them who received early compensation payments from the companies say they’re now afraid they may have to pay it back.
- The permits were revoked following an audit that found a litany of violations by the companies, at least two of which appear to belong to a notorious alleged illegal logging kingpin.

Links to coal mining add to Indonesian palm oil sector’s risk for buyers
- Six of the top 10 palm oil conglomerates in Indonesia have coal mining businesses, and five of the top 10 coal miners have oil palm businesses, a new report shows.
- This substantial overlap means that consumer goods giants like Nestlé and PepsiCo that buy palm oil from Indonesia are potentially exposed to mining risk too, including deforestation and pollution.
- While most of the palm oil companies have zero-deforestation policies and sustainability commitments, the affiliated mining companies aren’t scrutinized as closely and have often been associated with environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and worsening climate change.
- The report authors say this poses reputational and financial risks for the consumer goods companies that buy from the palm oil firms, and for the banks and investors that fund them.

Remnant forests struggle to survive amid oil palm plantations, study shows
- Forest trees that persist in areas dominated by oil palm plantations tend not to grow to maturity, a new study shows.
- Researchers say this has important implications for biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation in these landscapes.
- Remnant trees can support secondary forests and recover biomass and biodiversity, but only if they’re allowed to grow to maturity.
- The study indicates that growing forest trees among oil palms can boost biodiversity without impacting on palm oil yields.

When a tree falls in the forest, you can still hear the birdsong
- Recovering forests in Malaysia that were once selectively logged are an important habitat for tropical forest birds, a new study has found.
- The study surveyed bird biodiversity in Kenaboi State Park, which was last logged in the 1980s and declared as a protected area in 2008.
- Unlike the state park, other selectively logged forests across Malaysia are commonly turned into oil palm plantations and agricultural land rather than being allowed to recover, the researchers said.
- They recommend foresters make use of post-harvest management techniques to speed up recovery for selectively logged forests, and for state governments to declare these forests as protected areas.

Oil palms alone can be damaging; with other crops, the benefits abound
- Intercropping in oil palm plantations can reduce deforestation, increase biodiversity, and boost farmers’ income, all without hurting palm oil yields, new research suggests.
- The approach has been adopted by smallholders, but large companies are still reluctant to implement it.
- Integrating livestock like cattle with oil palm plantations also produces a number of benefits, such as reducing the need for fertilizers and herbicides.

Borneo’s bearded pigs and traditional hunters adapted to oil palms. Then came swine fever
- Oil palm expansion and urbanization have altered the traditional hunting of bearded pigs by the Indigenous Kadazandusun-Murut (KDM) community in Sabah, Malaysia, a new study has found.
- Researchers interviewed 38 hunters on changes in pig behavior and hunting practices before the African swine fever (ASF) epidemic hit Sabah in 2021.
- They found that even though pig hunting patterns have changed dramatically, the activity remains a cornerstone of KDM communal culture for food, sport, gift-giving, festivals and celebrations.
- As ASF devastates wild pig populations, the researchers’ findings highlight a need for long-term hunting management that conserves both the bearded pig and Indigenous cultural traditions.

Palm oil firms in Papua hit back with lawsuit after permits are revoked
- Three palm oil companies are suing local officials in Indonesia’s West Papua province after their permits were revoked for a series of violations.
- The companies are seeking a reversal of the revocation, which locks them out of a combined 90,031 hectares (222,471 acres) of land in Sorong district, an area larger than New York City.
- The Sorong district head says he revoked the permits after a province-wide audit found a litany of violations by plantation license holders, including violations of the rights of Indigenous communities.
- The district head has received an outpouring support from civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and a national parliamentarian, who have all condemned the lawsuits.

Calls mount for Indonesian ban on new palm oil plantations to be extended
- Calls are mounting from within the government and civil society for Indonesia’s ban on new oil palm plantations, in force since 2018 and set to expire this September, to be extended.
- They argue the moratorium has brought some improvements to the plantation industry, which has long been associated with deforestation, conflicts with traditional communities, and labor rights abuses.
- At the same time, they say, the moratorium has failed to address a litany of other issues, and renewing it will give the government and stakeholders more time to make the necessary progress.

Highway cutting through Heart of Borneo poised to be ‘very, very bad’
- With Indonesia planning to shift its capital from Jakarta to the Bornean province of East Kalimantan, infrastructure development pressures on the island have intensified.
- Neighboring Malaysia is adding new stretches to the Pan Borneo Highway to capitalize on spillover economic benefits; within Indonesia, East Kalimantan’s developmental gains are also expected to trickle to other provinces through the transboundary highway.
- While the new roads could spur economic development in remote villages, they also carve into protected areas in the Heart of Borneo, opening them up for resource extraction.
- In particular, the roads could fast-track development of a new “oil palm belt,” with disastrous consequences for the wildlife and Indigenous peoples of Borneo, and for global climate, experts say.

Deforestation surge continues amid deepening uncertainty in Myanmar
- Satellite data from the University of Maryland show a surge in forest clearing in northern parts of the Tanintharyi region in southern Myanmar, including within a protected area.
- Major drivers of deforestation are commercial oil palm and rubber plantations, small-scale agriculture, and infrastructure development.
- In the region’s south, forest loss is affecting the already fragmented habitat of globally threatened Gurney’s pittas and tigers, among other rare species.
- Meanwhile, activists say the political turmoil following the Feb. 1 military coup has effectively halted community-led forest protection work.

Loss of mangroves dims the light on firefly populations in Malaysia
- Firefly populations along the banks of the Rembau River in Malaysia have declined drastically in the past decade due to habitat loss, a new study has found.
- Researchers, who used satellite imagery to monitor changes in land use, found that conversion of Rembau’s mangroves to oil palm plantations and dryland forests were the top two factors behind the loss.
- Remote-sensing technology could help locals better understand the impact of various land use types on mangrove ecosystems and more efficiently prioritize areas for conservation.

FSC dumps palm oil giant Korindo amid rights, environmental issues in Papua
- Indonesian-South Korean palm oil giant Korindo has been expelled from the Forest Stewardship Council after both parties couldn’t come into an agreement on how to verify the company’s compliance.
- Korindo was in the process of keeping its membership at the FSC, which required the company to make significant social and environmental improvements and provide remedy to the damage it had done from its operations in the Indonesian province of Papua.
- The FSC was supposed to verify the progress but the certification body and Korindo failed to agree on the process.
- Korindo plans to reenter the FSC and says it remains committed to sustainability, but activists say the disassociation means the company has failed to meet sustainability standards and sends a message to other firms accused of environmental and social violations.

Top brands failing to spot rights abuses on Indonesian oil palm plantations
- A new report highlights systemic social and environmental problems that continue to plague the Indonesian palm oil industry and ripple far up the global palm oil supply chain.
- The report looked at local and Indigenous communities living within and around 10 plantations and found that their human rights continued to be violated by the operation of these plantations.
- The documented violations included seizure of community lands without consent; involuntary displacement; denial of fundamental environmental rights; violence against displaced Indigenous peoples and communities; harassment; criminalization; and even killings of those trying to defend their lands and forests.
- The problems have persisted for decades due to ineffective, and sometimes lack of, due diligence by buyers and financiers along the global supply chain, the report says.

Indonesia bets on biofuels over oil, but EVs could render both moot
- Increased adoption of electric vehicles could render redundant Indonesia’s biofuel infrastructure, which the government is touting as its chosen alternative to fossil fuels.
- A new report projects demand for biofuel more than halving as EVs take hold, even as the government continues to invest heavily in refineries and other infrastructure for producing and distributing palm oil-based biodiesel.
- The report calls for a long-term plan for biofuel that takes into account the rapid development of EVs and that doesn’t rely solely on palm oil for feedstock.

Blind spot in palm policy raises deforestation risk in Malaysia, report says
- A blind spot in the sustainable production policies of major palm oil companies is allowing plantation owners clearing rainforest in Malaysia to continue feeding the former’s “deforestation-free” supply chains.
- In Indonesia, forests can only be cleared if they are explicitly linked to a particular project; in Malaysia, companies can obtain permits for the sole purpose of clear-felling, making it more difficult to link oil palm growers and plantation owners to deforestation activities.
- Researchers have called on palm oil traders and refiners to trace deforestation beyond the mills in their supply chains, to the plantations the mills are buying from.

NGOs call for alternative routes for Bornean road to avoid wildlife habitat
- Coalition Humans Habitats Highways has urged authorities in the Malaysian state of Sabah to adopt alternative routes to a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway.
- That particular stretch cuts through a protected forest reserve and overlaps extensively with heavily used elephant migration paths.
- Experts say constructing the highway as currently planned would increase wildlife-vehicle collisions, including deadly accidents involving elephants, as well as human-elephant conflict.
- It would also derail progress made by local community efforts encouraging humans and elephants to coexist in harmony.

Deforestation of orangutan habitat feeds global palm oil demand, report shows
- Palm oil giant Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) has allegedly sourced the commodity from a plantation responsible for deforesting prime orangutan habitat in Sumatra, which would constitute a violation of the group’s no deforestation and no peatland destruction policies.
- An investigation by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) detected deforestation within the plantation operator’s concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth.
- According to the investigation, palm oil from the concession ended up in RGE’s supply chain, and subsequently the global market; RGE is a key supplier to major brands like Unilever, Kao, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, Nestlé and Colgate-Palmolive.
- RGE’s palm oil arm, APICAL, said it had put a monitoring system in place and carried out risk engagement and supplier engagement measures in its supply chain, but RAN said these efforts were not enough as deforestation-tainted palm oil from the Leuser Ecosystem was still ending up in its supply chain.

Never too late to save Earth: Q&A with Leuser forest guardian Rudi Putra
- The Leuser Ecosystem is a protected tropical rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, boasting 10,000 species of plants and 200 species of mammals, dozens of them found nowhere else on Earth.
- For 20 years, Rudi Putra has been working on saving this ecosystem which covers nearly 23,000 square kilometers (8,880 square miles) and is home to the Sumatran rhino, tiger, elephant and orangutan.
- Rudi’s efforts to save Leuser includes reforestation of illegal oil palm plantations, for which he was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2014.

Environmental benefits or social — but rarely both — under RSPO, study finds
- Oil palm plantations certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) can promote environmental benefits, but have a limited impact on rural development, a new study has found.
- The study analyzes trade-offs between development and environmental impacts of RSPO on local communities in Indonesia.
- It found that the certification scheme can be effective in terms of promoting both conservation and development outcomes, but under certain conditions.
- A key factor found to influence the outcomes is terrain flatness: steeper slopes are more expensive to cultivate, making it less likely that palm oil companies will implement more environmentally friendly practices.

Final court ruling orders Indonesian government to publish plantation data
- An Indonesian court has upheld a landmark ruling that says all plantation data and maps are public information and thus should be made available to the public.
- The court’s decision was made in 2020, but it wasn’t until March 2021 that the court informed the plaintiff in the case, the NGO Forest Watch Indonesia.
- But the government, in this case the land ministry, has refused to comply with the order to release the data, going back to a 2017 Supreme Court ruling.
- The ministry has also refused to share the data with other government ministries and agencies, prompting even lawmakers to call on it to comply.

Indonesia’s biodiesel program fuels deforestation threat, report warns
- A new report adds to warnings that Indonesia’s biodiesel program will drive greater deforestation by boosting demand for palm oil.
- It says contradictory and opaque government policies “create conditions for producers to maintain business-as-usual production systems, instead of investing in more sustainable production innovations, such as increasing land productivity.”
- Experts also say the biodiesel program should only serve as a transition to more sustainable forms of renewable energy, and not the long-term solution that the government is touting.
- Palm oil plantations are the single biggest driver of deforestation in Indonesia.

Oil palm plantations a ‘threat to global health,’ says study on outbreaks
- From Ebola in Africa to malaria in Brazil to tick-borne illnesses in the U.S., there is a common thread linking outbreaks of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases: fluctuating forest cover, according to a recent study.
- Deforestation and even increases in green cover can fuel the rise of diseases, the research shows, citing the link between oil palm plantations and outbreaks of malaria and dengue as a case in point.
- The study examined linkages between forest cover changes with vector-borne and zoonotic diseases between 1990 and 2016 and found that outbreaks of both types of infections have increased.
- The evidence that human health can suffer even as a result of misguided afforestation or plantation shows that more research is needed on the role of forests in modulating diseases.

Illegal clearing for agriculture is driving tropical deforestation: Report
- In a new report, NGO Forest Trends found that at least 69% of tropical forests cleared for agricultural activities such as ranching and farmland between 2013 and 2019 was done in violation of national laws and regulations.
- The actual amount of illegally deforested land is immense during that period – 31.7 million hectares, or an area roughly the size of Norway.
- The study notes that if tropical deforestation emissions tied to commercial agriculture were a country, it would rank third behind China and the U.S.
- Forest Trends president Michael Jenkins said that when governments view forests like Indigenous peoples do – far more valuable standing than clear cut – conservation at scale is possible.

Indonesian president slammed for ‘wait-and-see’ approach on climate action
- During last month’s climate summit of world leaders, top emitters announced more ambitious climate targets in a bid to combat climate change.
- Missing from that list was Indonesia, whose president, Joko Widodo, instead called on industrialized countries to set an example for other nations to follow.
- Climate and policy experts in Indonesia say his failure to announce a bold target for achieving net-zero emissions is a missed opportunity for Indonesia to show global leadership based on its success in reducing deforestation.
- They also criticized a government proposal, not yet officially endorsed by the president, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070 — 20 years later than most other major emitters.

Indonesian omnibus law’s ‘whitewash’ of illegal palm oil shocks its architects
- Indonesian lawmakers appear outraged at a scheme from a law they already passed that grants amnesty to oil palm plantations operating illegally inside forest areas.
- The amnesty scheme gives the operators a grace period of three years to apply for the proper paperwork, including a redesignation of the forest they’re illegally occupying to a non-forest designation.
- The lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved the law last November despite near-universal criticism, have called the scheme “whitewashing” and “eco-terrorism.”
- One even expressed his own regret at not being a “forest thief” had he only known how lucrative it would be.

Sri Lanka to ban palm oil imports, raze plantations over environmental concerns
- Sri Lanka has imposed a ban on palm oil imports and ordered oil palm plantations in the country to be replaced with rubber trees and other crops over the next decade, citing adverse environmental and social impacts.
- The decision is based on recommendations from a 2018 report by a panel of environmental experts, who linked oil palm plantations to soil erosion and the drying up of water sources.
- Unlike in other countries where the crop is grown, oil palms aren’t a driver of deforestation in Sri Lanka; instead, they’ve replaced rubber plantations, which host a higher level of biodiversity and provide more jobs for locals.
- Another concern is that oil palm is becoming an invasive species, occurring in the wild in a forest reserve, with as-yet-unknown impacts on native flora and fauna.

Belgium-sized swath of forest faces the chop from Indonesian palm oil
- Curbing deforestation associated with the palm oil industry is crucial if Indonesia wants to meet its long-term emissions reduction targets, experts say.
- There are still 3.5 million hectares (8.65 million acres) of natural forest inside existing oil palm concessions that could potentially be cleared in as little as three years as demand for palm oil continues to grow.
- Experts have called on the government to save these forests by extending and strengthening a moratorium on licensing new plantations.
- They also call for the adoption of the high conservation value and high carbon stock approaches to identifying areas to protect.

Companies and officials flout forest-clearing moratorium in Papua, report finds
- A new Greenpeace report has identified a litany of loopholes and violations in Indonesia’s forest and palm oil moratoriums as well as other forest protection regulations.
- The report alleges that government officials routinely flout their own regulations to continue issuing licenses to plantation companies in the country’s eastern Papua region.
- Among the alleged violations are the constant changes to maps of forest that should be off-limits for plantations, and forest-clearing permits granted to companies that don’t meet the requirements.

Indonesia’s bid to control deforestation wildly off-target, experts say
- Indonesia aims to transform its forests into a carbon sink by 2030 by reducing deforestation and increasing reforestation, as the country targets going carbon neutral by 2070.
- Experts say the plan is unrealistic given the current pace of deforestation and the fact that prevailing government policies still allow for a substantial amount of forest clearing for agriculture.
- A surge in global palm oil prices could also drive further deforestation in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity.

New palm oil frontier sparks scramble for land in the Brazilian Amazon
- Cultivation of oil palm has surged in Brazil’s northern state of Roraima over the last decade, fueled by an ambitious push towards biofuels.
- While palm oil companies operating in the area claim they do not deforest, critics say they are contributing to a surge in demand for cleared land in this region, driving cattle ranchers, soy farmers and land speculators deeper into the forest.
- As the demand for land increases, incursions near and into Indigenous lands that neighbor palm oil plantations are also on the rise.
- Indigenous rights activists say that in addition to the loss of forest, they’re worried about the pesticides that palm oil plantations are doused with and the runoff from processing mills, which frequently end up in soil and water sources, and that encroaching outsiders may introduce COVID-19 to vulnerable communities.

Palm oil waste is latest item declared non-hazardous by Indonesia
- A powdered clay used to clarify palm oil has been removed from Indonesia’s list of hazardous wastes, prompting warnings from environmental activists about an increase in dumping of untreated waste.
- The delisting by the government follows years of lobbying by businesses who say the treatment costs are onerous and want to be allowed to sell the waste, known as spent bleaching earth (SBE), to cement producers and the construction industry.
- Environmentalists say the delisting will lead to laxer safeguards and more haphazard management of the waste.
- The regulation that removed SBE from the list of hazardous waste also delisted the ash left over from coal burning, again at the behest of industry.

Can palm oil be grown sustainably? Agroforestry research suggests it can, and without chemicals
- Oil palms are typically grown in large monocultures worldwide, and aside from the deforestation these plantations are typically associated with, water pollution from heavy chemical application is another problem.
- But must oil palms be grown in monocultures with heavy chemical inputs to produce a profitable crop? Mongabay asked a researcher in Brazil about his group’s findings indicating that they do not.
- Using an ecologically friendly agroforestry system, the researchers have demonstrated higher yields on 18 demonstration farms: 180 kg of fresh fruit bunches per plant, compared with 139 kg per plant from monocultures.
- By growing oil palms in an agroforestry system among other useful and profitable crops–like açaí and passionfruit plus timber trees like mahogany and fertilizer trees plus annuals like cassava–farmers have more crops to eat and sell, enjoy greater resilience to palm oil price variations, and can make a competitive profit without using toxic and expensive chemicals.

Deforestation surge threatens endangered species in Tanintharyi, Myanmar
- The Tanintharyi region of Myanmar boasts remote, unique forests that provide vital habitat for endangered species found nowhere else in the world.
- But deforestation is mounting in the region, with satellite data showing a surge in tree cover loss so far in 2021.
- Research suggests plantation expansion and small farms have been increasingly eating into native forest over the past couple decades.
- The recent surge in forest loss also coincides with military attacks on Tanintharyi Karen communities, which reportedly have displaced thousands of people who have nowhere to go but into the forest.

Oil palm growers’ misdeeds allow an opportunity to save West Papua’s forests
- An area of forest two and a half times the size of London sits inside oil palm concessions in Indonesia’s West Papua province but can still be spared from being cleared, a government review indicates.
- Clearing the forest to plant oil palms would release the equivalent of two-fifths of Indonesia’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions, which is why leaving it intact is important, according to experts and local government officials.
- The concession holders have been prevented from developing the land because of a lack of permits and a litany of administrative and legal violations, according to the government review.
- This gives local authorities leverage to win back control of the concessions from the companies on administrative and procedural grounds, although officials say the process could take at least a year, even if the companies relinquish the land voluntarily.

Secretive group found to have cleared orangutan habitat in Indonesia: Report
- A new report has identified the secretive Nusantara Fiber group as being responsible for the most deforestation by the industrial forestry industry in Indonesia in the past five years.
- The group’s six subsidiaries cleared a combined 26,000 hectares (64,200 acres) of forest in Indonesian Borneo from 2016 to 2020 to plant pulpwood, timber and biomass trees, according to the report by the NGO Aidenvironment.
- Little is known about the group, but historical records suggest possible ties to the pulpwood and palm oil conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle; the latter has denied any such connection.
- Aidenvironment has called for a halt to the deforestation, which has cleared habitat of the critically endangered Bornean orangutan, and for greater transparency on the ownership structures of both groups, as well as the application of zero-deforestation policies.

Pension and endowment funds linked to conflict-plagued oil palm in DRC
- A new report from the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, reveals that several well-known pension funds, trusts and endowments are invested in a group of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of environmental and human rights abuses.
- Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) was recently purchased by two African private equity investors, and several European development banks have invested millions of dollars in the company’s operations.
- Accusations of abuses at the hands of police and plantation-contracted security guards have dogged the company, most recently with the death of a protester in February 2021.

Peatland on fire again as burning season starts in Indonesia
- Indonesia’s annual fire season has started again, with hotspots detected in 10 provinces.
- Some of the fires have been detected in protected areas with large swaths of peatland.
- The government says it’s preparing to carry out cloud seeding to induce rainfall in affected areas.
- However, environmentalists have called for more traditional methods of law enforcement to prevent fires breaking out in the first place.

Palm oil conflicts persist amid lack of resolution in Indonesian Borneo
- Efforts to resolve land conflicts between palm oil companies and local communities in western Indonesian Borneo have largely failed, with many disputes festering for more than a decade, a new study shows.
- Of 32 conflicts analyzed, 66% haven’t been resolved, even though 72% have been mediated by local governments, lawmakers and police.
- The researchers say the authorities tend to not enforce the law on companies and have instead tended to take a harder line on community members protesting against the companies.
- The study also found that other avenues of redress for the community, such as filing a complaint with certification bodies like the RSPO, remain underutilized because of complicated procedures and a lack of trust in institutions.

Pig nest-building promotes tree diversity in tropical forest: Study
- New research from a tropical forest in Malaysia reveals that wild pigs, better known for their destructive tendencies on farms and in ecosystems, may actually help encourage tree diversity in forests.
- Expectant mother pigs will build nests amid clumps of saplings, which are usually from a set of tree species common to the forest.
- When the sow kills these saplings for the nest, she’s effectively providing a check on any one species becoming dominant in the forest.
- The research demonstrates the benefits that pigs can bring to forest health, but they also note that pig populations that grow too numerous could — and do, in places — keep the forest from regenerating.

The Hungry Mills: How palm oil mills drive deforestation (commentary)
- In this commentary, Earthworm Foundation’s Rob McWilliam argues that palm oil mills are playing a large role in driving the palm oil industry’s destruction of the world’s rainforests, and that this role is often ignored.
- McWilliam writes that new research shows how to end the damage palm oil mills are causing.
- This article is a commentary and the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Deforestation in Indonesia hits record low, but experts fear a rebound
- The deforestation rate in Indonesia last year fell by 75% to its lowest level since monitoring began in 1990, according to the government.
- Officials attribute this mainly to government policies such as moratoriums on clearing primary forests and issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations.
- Environmentalists say other factors contributed, including an unusually wet year, declining palm oil prices, and an economic slump that led to a slowdown in forest-clearing activity such as plantation expansion and logging.
- They’ve called on the government to keep aiming for even lower rates of deforestation, and cautioned against pursuing economic growth emulating Brazil’s deforestation-driven extractive model.

A million hectares of Papuan forest licensed for clearing, report shows
- Natural forests spanning 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) in Indonesia’s Papua region have been slated for conversion, mostly for oil palm plantations, according to a new report by a coalition of NGOs.
- For now, more than 99% of the forests are still standing, but activists warn they will be vulnerable after a moratorium on new oil palm plantations expires at the end of the year.
- The deforestation of these natural forests could be devastating for the Indigenous communities and rich wildlife and plants of this biodiverse region.

‘We attack,’ Indonesia declares in joint bid with Malaysia to shield palm oil
- Indonesia and Malaysia plan to mount a joint offensive to shore up the palm oil industry against criticism of the deforestation and conflicts associated with the production of the commodity.
- The leaders of the two countries allege that the EU, which plans to phase out palm-based biodiesel as a renewable energy, is discriminating to protect its own vegetable oil producers.
- Top government and industry leaders in Indonesia have declared a “black campaign” against their European competitors and against Indonesian NGOs calling for a more sustainable palm oil industry.
- Activists have expressed dismay at the prospect of a PR war, saying the money and effort would be better spent on bringing actual reforms aimed at sustainability.

Papua deforestation highlights eastward shift of Indonesia forest clearing
- Deforestation is increasing in forest-rich regions in Indonesia, even as the government claims the national average has gone down, a new report shows.
- The NGOs behind the report attribute the decline in the national deforestation rate to the fact that there’s virtually no forest left to clear in parts of Sumatra and Borneo.
- Instead, deforestation has moved east, largely to the Papua region, home to nearly two-fifths of Indonesia’s remaining rainforest — an area the size of Florida — where companies are clearing land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations and mines.
- Another key driver of the deforestation in Papua is infrastructure development, which the government claims is meant to connect remote villages and communities, but which really serve mines, plantations and logging concessions, the report shows.

Forest patches amid agriculture are key to orangutan survival: Study
- A recent study highlights the importance of small fragments of forest amid landscapes dominated by agriculture for the survival of orangutans in Southeast Asia.
- The research, drawing on several decades of ground and aerial surveys in Borneo, found that orangutans are adapting to the presence of oil palm plantations — if they have access to nearby patches of forest.
- The authors say agricultural plantations could serve as corridors allowing for better connectivity and gene flow within the broader orangutan population.

In Malaysian Borneo’s rainforests, powerful state governments set their own rules
- Under Malaysia’s federal system, state governments hold authority over most regulations regarding land usage and environmental protection.
- In the Bornean states of Sabah and Sarawak, home to most of Malaysia’s remaining intact forests, politicians push against perceived interference from the central government, particularly when it comes to resource management.
- Since the late 1960s, Malaysian Borneo lost much of its forest: first to timber and later to palm oil and other agricultural industries.
- Both states have laws on the books aimed at protecting and managing forests, as well as sustainable forestry and palm oil certification schemes. Experts on forest management and conservation see cause for both optimism and skepticism.

‘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.

Indonesia’s top palm oil deforesters are the usual shady suspects: Report
- Repeat offenders dominate the 2020 list of top 10 palm oil companies responsible for palm oil-linked deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, according to a new analysis.
- Some of the top deforesters are shrouded in secrecy, with scant information about them publicly available.
- Overall, 2020 saw the lowest amount of palm oil-driven deforestation in three years, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- However, a resurgent domestic market in Indonesia, coupled with rallying palm oil prices, could fuel further deforestation in 2021.

Seven financial firms key to rooting out deforestation, report finds
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index funds are some of the most popular investment tools available, popular among individual and institutional investors alike.
- Just a handful of asset management firms control between 60% and 70% of these funds, according to a recent report from the financial think tank Planet Tracker.
- Planet Tracker’s analysis found that $9.3 billion from ETFs is invested in a set of 26 companies engaged in the soybean trade and linked to deforestation.
- The report concludes that the financial firms in which ETFs and index funds are concentrated are critical in addressing financial support for deforestation.

6% of Earth’s protected land is used to grow crops, study finds
- Protected areas are intended safeguard the planet’s vulnerable inhabitants – including 83% of its endangered species.
- A new study reveals that cropland takes up 13.6% of the planet’s ice-free surface area and overlaps with 6% of its protected areas.
- While some species are at home in agricultural fields, many are not – particularly the endangered species many protected areas were created to safeguard.
- The study’s authors call for national and international sustainability goals to implement a more holistic, data-driven approach when it comes to improving food security and preserving habitat.

Plantations, mines didn’t worsen flood, Indonesia says. The data begs to differ
- Indonesia’s environment minister claims deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines had nothing to do with a recent deadly flood in southern Borneo.
- But the ministry’s own data, and statements by a senior minister, attribute the intensity of the flooding on the massive loss of forest cover across the Barito River’s watershed.
- Environmental activists say the deforestation has compromised the natural function of the watershed to absorb the heavy rains that caused the Barito and its tributaries to overflow following heavy rains.
- The coordinating minister for human development has called for a more sustainable management of natural resources in the region, warning against unbridled exploitation.

Palm oil plantations, coal mines linked to deadly Indonesia flood
- Environmentalists have attributed recent heavy floods in southern Indonesian Borneo to widespread deforestation for oil palm plantations and coal mines.
- An analysis by Indonesia’s space agency shows an area of forest twice the size of London was cleared in the past decade in the watershed area of the Barito River in South Kalimantan province.
- During the same period, plantations spanning twice the size of Los Angeles have been established in the watershed area.
- Activists have called for a sweeping review of licenses as well as rehabilitation of degraded areas in the region.

Colombian and Ecuadorian Indigenous communities live in fear as drug traffickers invade
- The Siona Indigenous group inhabits communities in two Indigenous territories: Buenavista in Colombia and the smaller Wisuyá in Ecuador.
- Both territories have seen increasing deforestation in recent years, which sources attribute to oil extraction, logging and the clearing of land for illicit crops – mainly coca, which is used to make cocaine.
- Armed groups control the trade and processing of coca and sources say those who oppose them face violent reprisal.

Cocaine production driving deforestation into Colombian national park
- Catatumbo Barí National Natural Park protects unique, remote rainforest in northeastern Colombia.
- Satellite data show the park lost 6.2% of its tree cover between 2001 and 2019, with several months of unusually high deforestation in 2020.
- Sources say illegal coca cultivation is rapidly expanding in and around Catatumbo Barí and is driving deforestation as farmers move in and clear forest to grow the illicit crop, which is used to make cocaine.
- Area residents say armed groups are controlling the trade of coca in and out of the region, and are largely operating in an atmosphere of impunity.

Agribusiness giants ADM, Bunge trading in ‘conflict’ palm oil, report says
- A report by Global Witness has found that more than 100 Indonesian palm oil mills supplying agribusiness giants ADM and Bunge have been accused of land and human rights violations and environmental destruction.
- Global Witness found that neither company is addressing the majority of these allegations through their formal grievance processes, and effectively passing on this “conflict” palm oil to major consumer brands such as Nestlé, Unilever and PepsiCo.
- ADM and Bunge have denied any failure to police their suppliers, but have also pledged to look into the allegations.

Top Indonesian palm oil developments in 2020
- A persistent pandemic, fluctuating palm oil prices and escalating conflicts failed to slow the environmental and social fallouts from the growth of the palm oil industry in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity.
- There’s growing fear over accelerated deforestation to clear land for more plantations as the government continues to promote palm oil-based biodiesel — even as others refuse to recognize it as a renewable fuel.
- The country’s new palm oil frontier, in the forests of Papua, is tainted by allegations of falsified permits and violence against Indigenous communities.
- At the same time, new legislation exempts plantation operators from environmental requirements and allows for the whitewashing of illegal plantations in forests.

Indonesia’s biofuel bid threatens more deforestation for oil palm plantations
- The Indonesian government says it will need to establish new oil palm plantations a fifth the size of Borneo in order to supply its ambitious biodiesel program.
- The program, through which Indonesia plans to eventually phase out the use of conventional diesel, will require planting 15 million hectares (37 million acres) of oil palms, according to the energy minister.
- Energy and environmental experts say it’s inevitable that massive swaths of forest will have to be cleared to meet this target, and have called for it to be scaled back.
- They also question the drive to ramp up the biodiesel program, given that Indonesia has expressed its ambitions to be a global production hub for electric vehicles — which don’t run on diesel, whether conventional or bio.

Report finds litany of labor abuses on RSPO-certified oil palm plantations
- Widespread labor abuses have been documented in five oil palm plantations in Indonesia, ranging from exposure to hazardous chemicals, a reliance on temporary workers, below minimum-wage payments, to the suppression of independent unions.
- These plantations are in theory supposed to be role models for the industry, with RSPO sustainability certification and buyers that include the likes of food giant Nestlé.
- Labor rights activists say these companies and their agribusiness parent groups and buyers must follow up on the findings and take meaningful action to clean up the industry.

An oil palm front advances on an Indigenous community in Peru
- Indigenous Shipibo leaders in Peru’s Ucayali region say they live under the threat of attacks from suspected land traffickers who continue to invade their territory.
- The Indigenous community of Santa Clara de Uchunya says these invasions have been exacerbated by the advancement of oil palm plantations in the Amazonian district of Nueva Requena.
- In August 2020, an outside group was caught cutting down trees that belong to the community.

Palm oil giant Wilmar unfazed as watchdogs cry foul over Papua deforestation
- Forest-monitoring groups have independently flagged the recent cutting down of natural forests inside an oil palm concession in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua.
- The concession is managed by PT Medcopapua Hijau Selaras (MPHS), a supplier to Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil trader, whose customers include Unilever, Kellogg’s and Nestlé.
- Wilmar’s investigation into the reports concluded that the actual deforestation is much smaller than alleged and was done by smallholder farmers and not MPHS.
- The watchdogs dispute this, however, saying the clearing occurred in areas that should have been off-limits under Wilmar’s own stated commitments to sourcing only sustainable palm oil.

Ecuador’s palm oil law a boon for producers, but not people and planet, groups say
- In July, Ecuador’s National Assembly passed the Oil Palm Law, which environmental groups and experts say benefits palm oil producers at the expense of communities, forests and the environment.
- A key concern is that the law will encourage greater deforestation for oil palm plantations, which are already a leading driver of forest loss in the country.
- Groups also say that although the new law includes monitoring and control mechanisms, the regulations to enforce this won’t be ready for several more months, and even then it’s unlikely that they will be implemented.

Activists in Malaysia call on road planners to learn the lessons of history
- To its proponents, the 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) Pan Borneo Highway holds the promise of economic development for the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
- But activists in Sabah say that poor planning and an emphasis on extracting resources mean that the highway could harm communities and ecosystems in Sabah’s forests and along its coastlines.
- A new film captures the perspectives of people living closest to the highway’s proposed path and reveals the struggles that some have faced as the road closed in on their homes.
- Meanwhile, an environmental historian argues that Pan Borneo Highway planners are repeating the same mistakes British colonists made in focusing on extraction, rather than trying to find ways to benefit Sabah’s communities.

Palm oil giant Korindo accused again of illegally burning Papuan rainforest
- An independent investigation based on satellite imagery has concluded that palm oil giant Korindo deliberately set fires to clear rainforest in its concession in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- Researchers from the University of London’s Forensic Architecture group and Greenpeace found that the spread and speed of the burning matched the pattern of land clearing, and didn’t appear as random as fires on neighboring concessions.
- The finding is the latest allegation of illegal burning by Korindo, which is accused of having cleared a Chicago-sized area of rainforest in Papua.
- The company accuses nearby villagers of setting the fires, but the villagers’ accounts of Korindo employees starting the fires matches with the burn periods determined by the analysis.

Mongabay explores Sumatra, a land like no other
- Sumatra is the only place in the world where tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans all live together in the same expanse of rainforest. Its plant life is also extremely diverse.
- For a new edition of the Mongabay Explores podcast series, we will explore the island's incredible biological richness and environmental challenges.
- On this first episode, host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with Sumatran winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize Rudi Putra and biologist Greg McCann, who provide a fascinating look at the incredible biodiversity of this, the world's sixth largest island.
- A new episode will air approximately every two weeks, subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast via your podcast provider of choice to hear them all.

Threatened species caught in crossfire of ongoing land conflict in Myanmar
- Conflict over how best to protect the biodiversity of Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region may be contributing to the rapid loss of its forest cover.
- Habitats of globally threatened species, including the critically endangered Gurney’s pitta and recently discovered geckos, face destruction due to logging, agriculture and other human pressures.
- Researchers fear that entire species may be driven to extinction without ever being documented if habitats aren’t protected fast.

Filling the vacuum: How civil society is battling COVID-19 in Cameroon (commentary)
- As of August 20, there have been 408 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in Cameroon and more than 18,000 reported infections, making it the country worst hit by the pandemic in Central Africa.
- While urban populations were swiftly informed of COVID-19 restrictions and prevention measures, in rural areas, where more than 40% of the population reside and where government services are lacking, information about the disease has been scarce.
- Cameroonian NGOs have been quick to fill this gap, and have to created communication and distribution networks across the country’s hinterlands.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

State neglect means Indigenous Papuans’ victory over palm oil firm is shaky
- Local authorities in Indonesia’s West Papua province have revoked the permits for an 11,475-hectare (28,355-acre) oil palm concession because it includes a forest that’s sacred to the Indigenous Moi people.
- Activists have welcomed the move but note that the permits could have been scrapped much sooner for various other reasons, including a violation of plantation size limits.
- They also criticized the central government, specifically the environment ministry, for not reaffirming the district government’s recognition of the Moi people’s Indigenous land rights, which would have made the forest off-limits to commercial exploitation.
- Without this official recognition from the central government, the forest can still be licensed out for agriculture, activists point out.

Study revealing New Guinea’s plant life ‘first step’ toward protection
- A recent study in the journal Nature found that New Guinea has more plant species than any other island on Earth.
- The island has more than 13,000 species of plants, more than two-thirds of which live only in New Guinea.
- The island’s forests are relatively intact, and researchers say the list of species is a step toward protecting them from the looming threats of large-scale agriculture, logging and road building.

Probe begins into alleged deforestation by Olam, ‘world’s largest farmer’
- A retrospective assessment has begun of claims that FSC-certified palm oil producer Olam razed thousands of hectares of wildlife-rich rainforest in Gabon.
- Campaigners are calling for Olam to fund compensatory forest restoration or additional protection.
- The Gabonese government says its palm oil strategy is sustainable and does not threaten the country’s rich biodiversity.

‘Meaningless certification’: Study makes the case against ‘sustainable’ palm oil
- Three-quarters of oil palm concessions in Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil occupy land that was forest and/or wildlife habitat as recently as 30 years ago, a new study shows.
- While not the initial drivers of deforestation in those areas, these plantations shouldn’t be certified sustainable if that history is accounted for, the study authors say.
- “The fact that someone else did deforestation just a few years before does not absolve the palm oil plantation’s owner and definitely does not justify a sustainability label by a certification scheme,” says co-author Roberto Cazzolla Gatti.
- He adds the RSPO’s failure to account for past deforestation means that “every logged area ‘today’ could be certified as a sustainable plantation ‘tomorrow,’ in an infinite loop of meaningless certification.”

Upgrade of Indonesian palm oil certification falls short, observers say
- The Indonesian government’s planned update to its palm oil sustainability certification program doesn’t do enough to protect Indigenous communities from land grabs or prevent the destruction of forests, groups say.
- The Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme prohibits the conversion of Indigenous lands to oil palm plantations, but relies on the official framework for recognizing Indigenous land claims that covers only a tiny fraction of such areas.
- It also fails to explicitly call for the protection of secondary forests, allowing an area greater than the size of California to potentially be cleared for more plantations.
- There is also no provision for independent monitoring of the ISPO certification scheme itself that would provide credibility and oversight to the system.

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