Pontianak – Authorities in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, have ordered temporary school closures, as thick haze from forest fires has worsened in the city.

Severianus Endi, Pontianak – Pontianak authorities have ordered temporarily school closures, as thick smog from forest fires has worsened in the city.

Lee Seok Hwai – A commander tasked with preventing fires in Riau said he has issued a shoot-on-sight order across the Indonesian province against those found clearing land by burning, a

Assawin Pakkawan and online reporters – Smoke haze from this year's burning-off in Indonesia is starting to affect the health of people in Narathiwat, Satun, Songkhla and Yala provinces

Jakarta – The government is determined to carry out all necessary measures to prevent forest and land fires from spreading on the island of Sumatra, as the Asian Games are set to kick o

Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Jakarta – The government is determined to carry out all necessary measures to prevent forest and land fires from spreading on the island of Sumatra, as the Asia

Jakarta – PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper (RAPP) has said it is supporting the 2018 Asian Games by raising awareness on the dangers and impacts of forest fires in an effort to reduce t

Jakarta – Researchers say the Indonesian government's "land swap" plan to give plantation companies new lands in exchange for restoring areas they destroyed could result in more tropica

Fergus Jensen and Bernadette Christina Munthe, Jakarta – Palm oil sourced from illegally cleared rainforest areas in Indonesia has flowed through traders to major consumer goods brands

Palm oil companies have been blamed for some of the worst environmental destruction in recent times, specifically the wide-scale destruction of Indonesia's critically important rainfore

Kharishar Kahfi, Jakarta – Relevant state agencies are set to collaborate to establish better forestry management in Papua in order to curb rampant illegal logging in the easternmost pr

Stephen Wright, Bangkok – The main global group for certifying sustainable wood has sent a "come clean" ultimatum to one of the world's largest paper companies and its billionaire Indon

Michael Taylor, Kuala Lumpur – One of Indonesia's biggest businesses rejected criticism on Thursday (17/05) from Greenpeace, which pulled out of a landmark conservation pact this week a

Audrey Tan, Singapore – Singapore looks set to see a third straight year with no haze, due in part to Indonesia's sustained efforts at curbing fires and preventing their spread.

Jon Afrizal, Jambi – Land and forest fires have been detected in the regencies of Batanghari and Kerinci, as well as Sungai Penuh city in Jambi, the Batanghari Disaster Mitigation Agenc

Bernadette Christina Munthe, Jakarta – The Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries, or CPOPC, a palm oil board led by Indonesia and Malaysia, said British supermarket chain Iceland's de

An environmental NGO has accused a major palm oil company in Indonesia's Papua province of failing to honour the spirit of a moratorium on new forest clearing.

Moses Ompusunggu, Jakarta – Joining the wave of what the industry has described as a "negative campaign" against palm oil, three documentaries on oil palm plantations have been released

A Lithuanian artist has carved a giant SOS message into an Indonesian palm oil plantation to draw attention to the damage done by deforestation and highlight the impact on people and wi

Moses Ompusunggu, Jakarta – Protecting Indonesian tigers can help to preserve the country's forest ecosystems, environmentalists have said.

Anton Hermansyah, Jakarta – The Indonesian government is planning to revise a presidential instruction (Inpres) that prohibits the construction of buildings and other infrastructure, in

Vindry Florentin, Jakarta – National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho stated that 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang coincides with the peak of

Rizal Harahap, Pekanbaru – Air quality in Dumai regency, Riau has worsened, with the latest air quality index showing a moderate level of pollution resulting from recent fires in surrou

Miami – The population of orangutans in Borneo has plummeted by more than half since 1999 – nearly 150,000 of the apes – largely due to chopping down forests for logging, paper, palm oi

Authorities in Indonesia have issued four new palm oil permits in its Papua provinces despite a moratorium on palm oil expansion declared by president Joko Widodo in 2016.

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has reported a second straight annual decline in the country's deforestation rate, but continues to confound with its definition

Hans Nicholas Jong – Officials in Indonesia and Malaysia, the world's biggest producers of palm oil, have lambasted the European Parliament's decision to phase out the commodity from mo

Anton Hermansyah, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has slammed the approval of the new EU bill on clean energy by the European Parliament on Wednesday, which, among other things, wil

Indonesian activists and church people have reacted angrily to a draft bill set to go before legislators aimed at regulating the palm oil industry, saying it panders to large scale palm

Mongabay – Extensive deforestation in Sumatra has corralled the island's native tigers into fragmented habitats, only two of which contain a sufficiently robust population of the nearly extinct big

Deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations is driving critically endangered Sumatran tigers towards extinction, researchers warned on Tuesday.

Vast swathes of rainforest are destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations, threatening endangered species and pushing indigenous people off their lands

Anuradha Raghu, Kuala Lumpur – As concerns about palm oil's sustainability simmer in Europe, the world's second-biggest grower is ramping up its defense of the most-consumed edible oil.

Arthur Neslen – Nestle, Mars and Hershey have been accused of breaking pledges to stop using "conflict palm oil" from deforested Indonesian jungles, just days before the annual Halloween confection

Francis Chan, Jakarta – The number of forest fires across Indonesia fell by more than 30 per cent this year as fire prevention and enforcement efforts, started after the trans-boundary haze crisis

N. Adri, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan – Environmental activists said a lack of concrete action may hinder the success of agreements made by the governor's Climate and Forest Task Force (GFC).

Laura Villadiego in Aceh Tamiang, Indonesia – Armed with a chainsaw and a copy of Indonesia's environmental laws, biologist Rudi Putra and his team of eco-warriors have been identifying and cutting

Hans Nicholas Jong – Under fire from watchdogs and consumers of its smartphones, Samsung said it would not pursue a joint venture with Korindo, itself the target of an NGO campaign for destroying r

Syofiardi Bachyul, Padang – The residents and regency administration of the Mentawai Islands have opposed the decision made by the central government and West Sumatra provincial administration to g

Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur – Facing a backlash in Europe over palm oil's environmental toll, the world's top producers are scrambling to find new markets and even striking unusual barter deals, such as e

Jakarta – A large chunk of protected forest in Padang Lawas district in North Sumatra, which has been illegally occupied and converted into large-scale commercial plantations by dozens of companies

Jon Afrizal, Jambi – The Jambi Police have named five people as suspects during their investigation into seven land and forest fire cases, which occurred from January to August.

Vaidehi Shah Friday – Environmental campaigners have found that The Australian and Courier Mail newspapers in regional Queensland are printed on paper linked to illegal deforestation and human righ

Jakarta – As the world's biggest exporter of palm oil, Indonesia plans to increase production to 42 million tons by 2020 to maintain its global lead, according to a top industry player.

Jon Afrizal, Jambi – While the number of hot spots in some areas across Sumatra is declining with the onset of the rainy season, land and forest fires in Jambi continue to break out.

It's been called the orangutan capital of the world, but the great apes in Indonesia's Tripa peat forest on the island of Sumatra are under threat by palm oil plantations that have gobbled up thous

Stephen Wright and Niniek Karmini, Jakarta – In a remote corner of Borneo, an Indonesian company and its Chinese partner are pushing ahead with an industrial wood plantation in a tropical forest an

Nurul Fitri Ramadhani, Jakarta – The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has warned of an increasing risk of land and forest fires from August to September as a result of the prolonged dry s

Eveline Danubrata and Stefanno Reinard, Jakarta – Indonesian security companies have seen a surge in demand for guards to protect palm oil plantations from fruit thieves and land grabbers, amid a r

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Jakarta – Rainfall has helped with firefighting efforts in the forests and plantations of Kalimantan and Sumatra, but new hotspots have emerged in Papua, in the eastern part