Petrus Kinggo walks through the thick lowland rainforest in the Boven Digoel Regency. “This is our mini market,” he says, smiling. “But unlike in the city, here food and medicine are free.” Mr Kinggo is an elder in the Mandobo tribe. His ancestors have lived off these forests in Papua, Indonesia for centuries. Along with […]
Forest degradation nearly doubled in the Brazilian Amazon last year, rising from 4,946 square kilometers in 2018, to 9,167 square kilometers in 2019. Experts say this is likely due to soaring illegal timber harvesting and export under President Jair Bolsonaro. To facilitate illegal harvesting of rare and valuable timber, like that of the Ipê tree, […]
Police in Indonesia have charged two indigenous men with vandalizing heavy equipment after a confrontation with a company accused of illegally logging their ancestral land. The company, CV Sumber Berkat Makmur, has a concession to cultivate nutmeg trees in East Seram district, Maluku province, but it’s unclear whether the ancestral land of the Sabuai indigenous […]
An area nearly the size of Paris has already cut a hole in a vast stretch of rainforest on the island of New Guinea, as the companies clearing the forest insist their permits are legitimate.Indonesian government officials have alleged that permits underpinning a multi-billion dollar plantation project in Papua province were falsified, leading to the criminal […]
APB, the Dutch pension fund for government and education employees, announced it would divest 300,000 euros from the firm owned by one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates over forest destruction for palm oil in Indonesian Papua. Dutch national pension fund APB is divesting 300,000 euros ($351,000) from Korean firm Posco Daewoo over deforestation in Indonesia’s easternmost […]
The conglomerate appears to be concealing its involvement in the heavily forested region through offshore mechanisms. One of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates, the Salim Group, has likely acquired four palm oil concessions in West Papua using a complex network of shared directorships and offshore companies, new research suggests. Online watchdog awas MIFEE reported in May it had […]
