Two years after announcing he would ban palm oil operations, President Jokowi has finally halted the issuing of new licences and ordered a review of all current licensing data.
The government has enacted wide-ranging policies to restore peatland following the disastrous fires of 2015 that razed an area four times the size of Grand Canyon National Park.
Bad air has pulled South Asian cities down The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Liveability Ranking while political stability has nudged Hong Kong above Singapore. How did the rest of the region fare?
The Trase Yearbook 2018 is the first in an annual series of reports on countries and companies trading in such commodities as soy, sugarcane and maize, which also assesses the deforestation risk associated with those crops.
Bernard Tan –
The reasons for forest fires are numerous and complex. With hotter and drier temperatures becoming the new normal in parts of the world, the solution is to work with companies, not against them, writes Sinar Mas’ Bernard Tan.
Assaad Razzouk –
They're designed to fund projects that have a positive environmental impact. But green bonds are being used as a mask for environmental destruction. We should fix this while we still have time, says Assaad Razzouk.
Herry Purnomo –
Center for International Forestry Research scientist Herry Purnomo outlines how extra cash generated from Indonesia’s new tax amnesty program could boost the country’s green economy.
Palm oil production is unlikely to go away as Indonesia seeks employment for its people. Indonesia’s neighbours need to rethink their approach to haze management.
Must peatland be drained for palm oil or acacia plantations out of economic necessity? Oscar M Lopez for Climate Change Climate Envoy Chris Cheng shares how wetland agriculture, or paludiculture, is a far more sustainable and lucrative alternative.
Nazir Foead, head of Indonesia's new Peatland Restoration Agency brings new energy to solving the country's deforestation and peatland problems, but engagement with major consumer giants India and China is lacking, and we still need to look at the million-dollar question of who will pay for sustainable goods.
Robin Hicks –
Indonesia has made significant progress in fighting the fires caused by slash-and-burn forestry that choke Southeast Asia annually with toxic air pollution. Eco-Business spoke to the chair of Indonesia's Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) about what it will take to put the fires out permanently.
Eco-Business –
In a bid to prevent another haze crisis, Indonesian agribusiness firms have developed innovative ways to work with communities to stop burning land. Here's how the fire free village programme is tackling the issue, one village at a time.
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Scientists from Center for International Forestry Research explain the causes and effects of burning peatlands as they visit Central Kalimantan in Indonesia.
Medilyn Manibo –
From Greenpeace's drones to NASA's satellites, eyes in the sky are revealing the extent of forest fires in Southeast Asia. The bad news: southern New Guinea is now also a hotspot.
Large-scale, human-induced landscape fires in Indonesia have been making headlines since the early 1980s. The impact of these fires is noticeable at the domestic, regional and global spheres in the ...
The annual haze that chokes Southeast Asia has often been blamed on palm oil. Yet, companies in Singapore continue to use palm oil to produce a wide range of products ...
