Indonesian palm oil billionaire gets 15 years for corruption

JAKARTA — A court in Indonesia has sentenced palm oil billionaire Surya Darmadi to 15 years in prison for his role in the biggest corruption case in the country’s history. The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court ruled on Feb. 23 that Surya had conspired with the elected head of Indragiri Hulu district in Sumatra, Raja Thamsir Rachman, […]

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Liberian courts rubber-stamp export shipment of illegal logs

Last week, a timber company won a controversial lawsuit against Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority when a court ordered the agency to allow a shipment of illegal logs to be exported overseas. Liberian environmental groups say the ruling is emblematic of a breakdown of the laws regulating the country’s logging sector under the current president, George […]

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Venezuela’s Yapacana National Park suffering increasing mining deforestation: report

Illegal gold mining is accelerating deforestation in one of Venezuela’s most threatened national parks, a new report from Amazon Conservation revealed. Satellite imagery analyzed by the NGO shows that thousands of excavators, bulldozers and other illegal mining equipment are clearing the rainforest in the southwestern part of Yapacana National Park, located in the Venezuelan state […]

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Mexico dismantles illegal fishing cartels killing off rare vaquita porpoise

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO — Some of the country’s most ambitious and successful wildlife traffickers are now in jail, officials announced. Mexico’s navy confirmed in a press conference that members of cartels dedicated to the trafficking of totoaba have been arrested and put in prison, effectively dismantling some of the main organized crime groups contributing to […]

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No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron

Heng Saphen and her daughter, Chan Lay PhiekKAMPONG THOM, Cambodia — The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy community in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district, waited for the judge’s verdict. The group had spent roughly $200 traveling the 75 kilometers (47 miles) to […]

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Indonesia’s Supreme Court rules President Widodo not liable in 2015 fires

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s Supreme Court has ruled President Joko Widodo not liable in the disastrous fires in 2015 that devastate large swathes of rainforests and peatlands in the country, despite three previous court rulings that found the president liable for the disaster. In 2016, a group of citizens and environmental activists in the province of […]

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Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials

Long-tailed macaques roam free across the Angkor Wat temple complexPHNOM PENH — Eight people, including two Cambodian Forestry Administration officials, have been charged by U.S. federal prosecutors for their alleged involvement in an international monkey smuggling ring. One of the officials charged, Kry Masphal, was arrested at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, en route to Panama, where he was to have […]

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EU ‘moving the goal posts’ with new timber requirement, Indonesia says

BERLIN — Indonesian officials have slammed the European Union’s proposal of a regulation that they say negates more than a decade of progress by the Southeast Asian country to comply with EU sustainable timber rules. Under a voluntary partnership agreement, or VPA, signed in 2011, Indonesia developed a system, known as the SVLK, to verify […]

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