Global Trade
We’ve crossed the land use change planetary boundary, but solutions await
Just weeks after visiting a patch of Malaysian rainforest, Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler learned it had been logged for wood chips to supply a paper plant. A teenager at the time, Butler recalls being devastated. “This place of wonder and beauty was lost forever,” he wrote in a 2018 story. “The orangutan, the hornbills, […]
Indonesian palm oil audit a chance to clean up ‘very dirty’ industry
JAKARTA — Activists have welcomed the Indonesian government’s announcement to carry out a nationwide audit of all palm oil companies operating here, in response to a shortage of cooking oil that has wracked the world’s top producer of palm oil. “What’s happening in the cooking oil industry is very dirty, because it’s filled with many […]
With ban on palm oil exports, Indonesia reaps condemnation and praise
JAKARTA — Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of crude palm oil, has ordered a ban on the export of the commodity starting April 28 to address an ongoing shortage of cooking oil in the country. President Joko Widodo announced the ban on April 22, set to run indefinitely, saying he wanted to ensure the country […]
Indonesian trade official, palm oil execs charged in cooking oil crisis
JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged a top trade ministry official and three palm oil executives in connection with a scarcity of cooking oil that has driven up protest and caused public unrest. The Attorney General’s Office announced on April 19 that it had charged Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana, the director-general of foreign trade at the […]
For Indonesians, palm oil is everywhere but on supermarket shelves
JAKARTA — Cartel practices have been blamed for a scarcity of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil — but government policies seen as coddling the industry have also come under scrutiny. Households across Indonesia have since last October experienced acute shortages of cooking oil. Even when supplies have been available, prices […]
‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
The Amazon Rainforest is resilient: the largest rainforest on the planet has been around for at least 55 million years, surviving repeated ice ages and warming. But human impacts, combined with climate change, are decreasing that resiliency, causing the forest to lose its ability to bounce back from repeated disturbances, according to a new study published […]
Deforestation for palm oil falls in Southeast Asia, but is it a trend or a blip?
JAKARTA — Deforestation associated with palm oil in the region covering Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea has declined for the second straight year, a new analysis shows, dropping to its lowest level since 2017. The decline bucks concerns that palm oil deforestation would experience a surge last year, following the 2020 downturn, on the […]
EU proposes ambitious ban on products tied to legal and illegal deforestation
The European Union is considering an ambitious new proposal that would regulate imports of products linked to global forest loss. The law would require suppliers to prove their products haven’t contributed to deforestation, whether legal or illegal. If passed, it would force producers to raise their environmental standards or risk losing out on a market […]