Land Conflict
Indonesia’s Sangihe islanders score legal victory over mining company
JAKARTA — Residents of a remote island in eastern Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island, after having an earlier legal challenge thrown out on a technicality. In the latest ruling, handed down May 22 and publicized only recently, a court in Manado, North Sulawesi province, ruled […]
Video: Indonesian villagers missing out on spoils from palm oil boom
One day in 2017, as a truck loaded with oil palm fruit drove down the main road in his village on the island of Borneo, Rita Dihales decided he’d had enough. He intercepted the truck, insisting that the company whose fruit it carried had failed to share the spoils of its plantation with the local […]
Legal defeats pile up for palm oil companies stripped of permits in Papua
JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has dismissed lawsuits filed by two palm oil companies against a district head who revoked their permits over various violations. The May 23 rulings mark the latest in a string of legal defeats for palm oil companies who lost their licenses to operate in Indonesia’s West Papua province. PT […]
Court setback doesn’t sway Indonesian villagers fighting a mining firm
JAKARTA — A court in Jakarta has rejected a lawsuit by a remote island community against a gold-mining operation that overlaps onto their villages, in a ruling deemed “problematic” by anti-mining activists. In its April 20 ruling, the Jakarta State Administrative Court said it had no jurisdiction to decide the case, which it characterized as […]
New report pieces together toll of environmental damage in Venezuela in 2021
While trying to put together a review of what happened to Venezuela’s environment in 2021, conservationists ran into a problem. The government publishes virtually no statistics on things like deforestation, infrastructure or mining, and it often actively blocks researchers from investigating threats to local ecosystems. Last year, the government appeared to lean more heavily on […]
Palm oil firm that cleared Papuan forest after losing its permit is still at it
JAKARTA — A palm oil company whose permit was revoked at the start of the year and which was ordered to halt operations is allegedly continuing to clear forests in Indonesia’s Papua province. PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), one of more than 100 companies targeted in a mass cancellation of plantation permits by Indonesia’s environment […]
FSC-certified Moorim Paper linked to massive forest clearing in Indonesia’s Papua
JAKARTA — An area of natural forest a tenth the size of Seoul has been cleared by a subsidiary of South Korean paper giant Moorim in Indonesia’s Papua region, a new report shows. The land in question, in the district of Merauke, is part of a concession licensed to PT Plasma Nutfah Marind Papua (PNMP), […]
Chinese investment in Latin America plagues people and nature: Report
China has spent the last two decades quietly establishing an economic foothold in Latin America, a region that has traditionally relied on Western investment. It’s become the top trade partner for countries like Brazil and Peru, and its banks have given out more than $137 billion in loans since 2005, mostly for infrastructure, energy and […]
In West and Central Africa, palm oil investors buckle under community pressure
When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on Africa, where governments in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire assured them that they had land to spare. In just a few […]
Palm oil and pulpwood the usual suspects as Papua deforestation persists
JAKARTA — Pulpwood and palm oil companies were among the biggest contributors to the loss of a Manhattan-size area of forest in Indonesia’s Papua region in 2021, a new report says. Using satellite imagery from Planet Labs and its own investigations on the ground, Pusaka, an environmental nonprofit, reported that it had detected 5,810 hectares […]