6 March 2011
Their black eyes peer from the slats of wooden cages, hundreds of orangutans orphaned after their mothers were shot or hacked to death for straying out of Indonesia's rapidly disappearing forests in search of food.
4 March 2011
For those not familiar with images of a tropical forest being depleted, it is difficult to imagine the level of desperation faced by indigenous populations who have retained their customary rights to live and depend on the forest’s environment according to their traditional ways.
1 March 2011
ONE of the world's biggest pulp and paper companies engaged in “systematic, sophisticated and long-running'' collusion to fix the price of paper in Australia, the Federal Court has found.
21 February 2011
Green activists said on Wednesday that the government’s much-hyped plan for a moratorium on new logging concessions would only apply to forests that were already protected in the first place.
21 February 2011
Environmentalists and the government have welcomed a pledge by Indonesia's largest palm oil producer to follow new standards to protect carbon-rich forests and peat land.
20 February 2011
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is slated to sign a presidential instruction this month, serving as the country's legal basis to stop the handing out of licenses to convert primary forest and peatland for business urposes.
14 February 2011
At 4 PM today the Chairman of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Bungaran Saragih, will meet Prof. Dr. Emil Salim, the Chairman of the Presidential Board of Advisors and Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the Chairman of UKP4 (Presidential Working Unit for Development Monitoring and Control).
11 February 2011
A major palm oil producer is joining forces with environmental campaigners in a bid to ramp up forest protection.
7 February 2011
An increasing part of Malaysia’s palm oil is produced at the account of huge areas of tropical peatswamp forests.
5 February 2011
The State Enterprises Ministry is pushing the 14 government-run plantation companies to speed up their expansion plans to capitalize on rising prices and growing demand for agricultural commodities in the international market.
2 February 2011
Indonesia admitted Tuesday that hundreds of mine and plantation companies are operating illegally on Borneo island, and promised to beef up law enforcement to protect forests and threatened species
29 January 2011
Among great apes, orangutans are humans' most distant cousins. These tree dwellers sport a coat of fine reddish hair and have long been endangered in their native habitats in the rainforests of Sumatra and Bor
25 January 2011
This post was prompted by emails from groups seemingly (at the time, and now confirmed) associated with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) that made dubious claims about the environmental, social, and economic performance of the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia. Evaluation of these claims has now raised serious questions on APP's commitment to sustainability.
18 January 2011
The Indonesian Ministry of Forestry has issued the final permit for an Ecosystem Restoration Concession (ERC) to PT. Restorasi Habitat Orangutan Indonesia (PT. RHOI), paving the way for the eventual release of rehabilitated ex-captive orangutans into the area.
14 January 2011
The delay of a scheduled moratorium on forest conversion that was supposed to be enforced at the beginning of the year is the result of lobbying by businesses operating in the country's forests, an official says.
5 January 2011
In efforts to save the world's remaining rainforests great hopes have been pinned on "degraded lands" — deforested lands that are presently sitting idle in tropical countries.
18 December 2010
Michelle Desilets, Executive Director of the Orangutan Land Trust, spoke with Laurel Neme on her "The WildLife" radio show and podcast about the process of rehabilitating orphaned orangutans and teaching them to be wild. This is the second in a two-part interview.
13 December 2010
Close to 90 percent of the world’s orangutans are found in Indonesia. And Kalimantan is their home. Which is why the orangutan is widely known as the island’s flagship species.
12 December 2010
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Joe Ludwig, today announced the Gillard Government will introduce legislation restricting the importation and sale of illegally logged timber.
8 December 2010
Can rich nations pay a corruption-riddled government to protect its rainforests?
The building of the quarantine enclosures to facilitate the release of orangutans from Nyaru Menteng is a crucial requirement in the orangutan release program, as once the final selection is made of the first 24 individuals to be released, it will be necessary to immediately isolate them from the other orangutans in the program.
With negotiations underway on the land agreement, construction of the enclosures will mark a final and vital preparation stage and determine the timetable for release. BOS Australia has committed to funding a block of ten enclosures at a cost of $150,000.
Please help us return the orangutans to the forest and support this project. To donate click here.
25 November 2010
A $1 billion dollar deal with Norway to save Indonesia's forests and cut planet-warming carbon emissions will trigger a much-needed shake up of Indonesia's notorious bureaucracy, a top official said.
24 November 2010
Indonesia's former Minister for Agriculture and Forestry is coming to Sydney to reveal plans for the largest ever release of captive orangutans into the wild.
24 November 2010
Bornean apes went through a genetic bottleneck during ancient glaciation.
24 November 2010
Vague legal definitions may allow Indonesia to class forests as 'degraded' and 'rehabilitate' the land with palm trees and biofuel crops.
22 November 2010
A manager with one of Australia's most famous food companies predicts the food industry will phase out palm oil, as the building industry did asbestos.
19 November 2010
As scientists who study tropical forest ecosystems, we would like to commend the Indonesian government for its commitment to tackling deforestation and Norway for the support it is providing to help Indonesia achieve this.
9 November 2010
The Netherlands has committed to only using palm oil certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) by 2015, providing a huge boost for the certification standard which aims to improve the social and environmental performance of the world's most productive oil crop.
8 November 2010
Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation brought together its various sister organisations from around the world in October to strengthen their collaborative effort to conserve the Bornean orangutan and its habitat.
1 November 2010
Engaging businesses instead of being confrontational could help activists' cause.
October 22, 2010
Illegal forest clearing fires in Indonesia's Sumatra Island are sending haze across the Malacca Strait to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, causing the worst air pollution since 2006, officials say.
October 22nd 2010
The Indonesian government is imposing a moratorium on forest clearing in return for $1 billion grant from Norway to fund projects to curtail deforestation and land degradation. Environmental groups and some businesses welcome the freeze.
The uncertainty is finally over for three homeless orangutans which had been thrown into a limbo of bureaucratic delay and become the centre of an international controversy.
18 October 2010
Ten civil-society groups, including Greenpeace, have called on the government to get serious about implementing a moratorium on issuing new logging concessions in critical areas.
18 October 2010
International environmental group Greenpeace is denying accusations that it is waging a foreign-funded campaign aimed at sabotaging the palm oil industry in Indonesia.
5 October 2010
Sinar Mas pulp and paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper, accused by green groups of large-scale deforestation, has signed a deal to protect a large area of forest in return for carbon offset revenue.