Earlier this month, more than 1,000 people gathered for World Environment Day in Samarinda, the capital of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province. It was a moment – shared by millions of people all over the world in different ways – of reflection and action on the environment. In the run-up to the event, there had been […]
This article is part of a special three-part series leading up to the Global Landscapes Forum 2016- The Investment Case. This one-day experts symposium – to be held in London on June 6- aims to accelerate investment in landscapes by connecting funds to farms and forests. There is little homogeneity in our world. This is true even among […]
Most people want to do the right thing in life. But sometimes doing what’s right can be costly or inconvenient. So additional incentives are needed to encourage good behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the palm oil industry. Producing palm oil sustainably requires producers to, among other things, reduce biodiversity loss and deforestation, […]
Conservationists and environmental scientists are used to bad news. So when there’s some really good news, it’s important to hear that as well. While the battle is far from over, there has been a series of breakthroughs in the long-running battle to protect the imperilled Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra, Indonesia – the last place […]
By Meghna Krishnadas. Originally published by Yale Environment Review. South-east Asia hosts some of the world’s most biodiverse forests. In addition to their spectacular species richness, many of these forests also provide vital ecosystem services related to carbon storage, climate regulation, water security, and soil health. However, global market forces coupled with a strong push […]
Indonesia and Malaysia are at the centre of the world’s decades-long palm oil boom. Between them the two countries have planted more than 15 million hectares of oil palm, employ about 4 million workers, and produce 84% of the world’s palm oil. It is the biggest and fastest rural transformation the countries have seen. Palm […]
Last year, fires burned 2 million hectares of peatlands in Indonesia, creating an acrid haze that affected several neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. As nations met in Paris late last year to agree a deal to limit global greenhouse gas emissions, the huge carbon pool stored in the peatlands was going up in smoke at an […]
This past autumn, I saw a shocking headline: Forest fires in Indonesia were creating as many greenhouse gas emissions as the entire United States economy. Between June and October 2015, an estimated 2.6 million hectares—or 4.5 times the size of Bali— burned to clear land for production of palm oil, the world’s highest value non-timber […]
More than 100,000 fires ravaged the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan throughout September and October 2015, producing a noxious haze that affected tens of thousands of people. Seasonal rains began in November, but 2015/16 are El Nino years, so the threat of new fires is far from over. The problem is complex but it can […]
Recent years have seen an expansion of commitments by forest country governments, corporations, donors, and investors to reduce deforestation and land-use emissions. However, these commitments have proven difficult to implement owing to the complex challenges of shifting from business-as-usual to a forest-friendly model of rural economic growth. At our session at the Global Landscapes Forum, […]
In Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province, the peat areas are burning and emitting a toxic smoke causing untold damage to the environment, wildlife and human health. Most of the fires in Central Kalimantan are blazing in former peatland forests, which have been drained, cleared and burned for oil palm and agriculture, large and small. The dried-out […]
The fires raging across Indonesia, and the hazardous smoke they create, are causing even greater damage to the environment, wildlife and communities than first imagined. While much of the recent focus has been on Sumatra—and the spillover into Singapore and Malaysia—the province of Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, faces a greater crisis. Once […]
