Forests and forestry

International and Indonesian NGOs are calling on the country’s largest paper company to stop using drained peat swamps for industrial agriculture. The practice, which relies on drying out the waterlogged soil so that acacia trees can be planted, has enabled vast new swaths of land ...

Halting the pace at which we’re destroying the world’s forests for agriculture, forestry, mines, and other economic development projects is crucial to combating climate change. Carbon finance, which involves creating monetary incentives for companies and countries to invest in programs to reduce carbon emissions, is ...

Local residents are concerned about timber being smuggled on the Đắk Bla River in the Central Highland province of Kon Tum, after authorities failed to stop the illegal activity. Last Tuesday, local media reported that smugglers are using tyres to float timber on the Đắk ...

Our motorbikes crossed flimsy bamboo bridges in western Sagaing Division, a landscape still showing the devastation of 2015’s floods. Shifting gears up a twisting, muddy hill trail took us over the border to Chin State. There, several villages are tucked into the forested slopes of ...

Parks officials on January 19 mobilised staff from the Protected Areas Regional Office 3 to catch protected and endangered animals left at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanburi province. The animals were left over from the last animal seizure at the controversial temple mid last year, ...

The expansion of highways and new irrigation projects were the primary concerns raised concerning the world heritage status of the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, with a report on the issue to be handed to the World Heritage Centre on February 1. Thailand’s National Committee ...

Numerous precious timber planks chopped down by illegal loggers have been left on the ground, amid vast clearings in the Hoa Son forest. After one and half an hours of crossing steep mountains, reporters reached the timber-rich area of Hoa Son Forest in Minh Hoa district ...

Over the past decade, banks, fund managers, and others funneled more than $8 billion into investments aimed at delivering measurable environmental benefits as much as financial returns, according to a new report prepared by the NGO Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace initiative. The findings of the ...

The Indonesian government is going to the Supreme Court over an NGO’s freedom of information request for detailed maps of land on which oil palm companies have been licensed to operate in Kalimantan, the country’s portion of Borneo island. Civil society groups have tried for ...

Southeast Asia is a global biodiversity hotspot — but with about 4 billion people living in the region, the pressures on that biodiversity are severe. Southeast Asia is a global biodiversity hotspot — but with about 4 billion people living in the region, the pressures on ...