Jakarta – The prolonged drought in Central Java, which has lasted for five months already, has caused residents in several provinces to resort to selling their livestock to purchase wat

Kanis Dursin, Bekasi – Indonesia is the biggest rice importer in Asia. This is sadly ironic, because almost 70 percent of the country's 213 million people are farmers.

Haidir Anwar Tanjung/FW & GB, Pekanbaru – Twenty villagers representing 439 families came to Riau Provincial Legislative Council to file a complaint over the seizing of their custom

Chaidir Anwar Tanjung/Fitri & GB, Pekanbaru – Tens of families from Betung village, Pangkalankuras subdistrict, Belelawan regency, Riau province, have fled to the shelter of a neigh

Chaidir Anwar Tanjung/Fitri & GB, Pekanbaru – Around 300 residents of Bangun Sar village, Kampar Kiri sub district, Kampar regency, Pekanbaru, Riau province, rallied at PT Uni Seray

Daniel Cooney, Dili – No one knows who really owns the blackened, burned-out building where Canadian businessman Kirk MacManus is trying to set up East Timor's first supermarket.

North Sumatra – Looting of plantations has become a major headache in Indonesia, hitting bottom lines in the sector and threatening investment and privatization plans.

Richard Borsuk, Porsea – When Suharto was president of Indonesia, corporate big shots visiting their factories in the provinces were routinely welcomed by festive banners strung above t

A Andri/Swastika & LM, Jakarta – Representatives of Batak Toba tribe in North Sumatra have urged the government to immediately close down PT Inti Indorayon Utama to avoid further co

A Ismail/Swastika & LM, Jakarta – The continuing conflict between the people of Porsea village, North Sumatra, with PT Inti Indorayon Utama (IIU) has claimed the life of Herman Sito

Jakarta – The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam) have condemned the brutal treatment of traditional miners at the hands of the Indonesi

Bogor – Police caught eight men on Friday from among some 200 armed locals who were vandalizing the 3,000-square-meter Gunung Mas tea plantation in Blok Panjang at Cibereum village, Cis

Simon Montlake, Jakarta – Local activists protesting over land rights have lifted a siege of a 14-ton-a-year gold mine in Kalimantan, owned and operated by a unit of Anglo-Australian mi

Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, has instructed state owned plantation companies to return some 40 percent of land taken by force or bought at unfair p

Jakarta – Conflicts between local communities and timber companies will likely increase in the future because the people are now more aware of their rights, a senior government official

Singapore – Thirteen people were injured when Indonesian police and military joined forces early on Sunday to disperse demonstrators at a resort on the Indonesian island of Bintan, the

Jakarta – Dozens of policemen in Central Java were injured in two days of protests by villagers trying to attack a rubber plantation, the official Antara news agency said Thursday.

Malang – Mass unrest and riots on Friday and Saturday (29th-30th October) followed the looting of coffee and cocoa belonging to the Sumbermanggis Plantations in Jogomulyo village, Tirto

Jakarta – Residents of Koja, an area on the northeast coast of Jakarta, are threatening to use force to take over land that was seized from them in 1995 by a state-owned company with cl

Vaudine England – Up the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan, hundreds of Dayak farmers have been occupying the base camp of an oil-palm plantation company since November.

Clashes between local residents, staff and members of the security forces have resulted in at least six deaths and hundreds of injuries at the Indorayon pulp and rayon mill in North Sum

Jakarta – An attack on a village in Sumatra left one man dead and 25 houses burned down, police and reports said Thursday, amid conflicting reports of who was responsible.

Jakarta – Reoccupation of land by grassroots people and labor disputes following massive dismissals at many companies due to the monetary crisis were just two of the highlights during t

Medan – Indonesian police on Monday opened fire on hundreds of farmers who occupied a state plantation on the island of Sumatra and also clashed with villagers in a strife-hit region of

Jakarta – Thousands of villagers looted state owned shrimp ponds on the Indonesian island of Nusakambangan, a report said Wednesday.

Medan – Hundreds of people burned vehicles, houses and warehouses in Indonesia's north Sumatran town of Porsea following a dispute over logging with rayon company PT Inti Indorayon, wit

Villagers in Riau province who fenced themselves in on ancestral land to back a compensation claim against Riau Andalan Paper and Pulp Company were driven from the area when heavily-arm

The Dayak Besar Group controls forest concessions of around 200,000 hectares and a number of timber mills in East Kalimantan.

Edward Alden, Jakarta - On one side of the lagoon, Arie, his wife and two children live in a tiny shack of scrap wood and rusting corrugated iron, perched on stilts above canals choked

Jakarta – The House of Representatives will pass the controversial bill on nuclear power in its plenary meeting scheduled assage omittefor Feb. 26, a legislator said yesterday.

Further evidence of the crisis in Indonesia's forestry industry is emerging as Ministry of Forestry, Djamaludin Suryohadikusomo, confirmed in October that 60 of the 90 private forest co

The International Finance Corporation, private sector arm of the World Bank, has agreed to provide US $41 million in equity and loans to an Indonesian company to develop oil palm estate

Timber tycoon Bob Hasan will soon start pulp production at his PT Kiani Kertas project in Berau district, East Kalimantan.

Jakarta – Kalimantan natives have urged the Nationa1 Commission on Human Rights to help them get compensation for property taken from them for mining projects.

Jakarta – A number of villagers from East, Central and South Kalimantan came to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) Tuesday to protest violations of human rights by fou

The folly of pushing ahead with a huge rice conversion project in Central Kalimantan without any environmental impact assessment, is becoming evident.

The rapid development of Indonesia's pulp and paper industry will put yet more pressure on the country's already severely depleted forests.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of pristine tropical peat forests in Central Kalimantan are about to be destroyed for a huge rice development project which experts say cannot work.

The long-running dispute between the Bentian people of East Kalimantan and the logging company PT Kahold Utama remains unresolved.

In West Kalimantan too, indigenous people are struggling to defend their customary land against commercial interests.