New data published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) reveals that the overall 2023 air pollution levels in Jakarta were arguably the worst since 2019. Despite improvements between 2020 and 2022, the rise of pollution in 2023 is a notable setback. Over 29 million people …
A smog outbreak in Southeast Asia last year may have caused over 100,000 premature deaths, according to a new study released Monday that triggered calls for action to tackle the “killer haze”. Researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US estimated there were more than 90,000 early deaths in …
Indonesia and the European Union (EU) are stepping up their partnership to combat illegal logging practices by applying the system of wood legalisation for timber exports. Under the partnership, timber exports from Indonesia to the EU will be accompanied from now on by a licence indicating its legal guarantee that …
In September–October 2015, El Niño and positive Indian Ocean Dipole conditions set the stage for massive fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), leading to persistently hazardous levels of smoke pollution across much of Equatorial Asia. Here we quantify the emission sources and health impacts of this haze episode and …
A recent study suggests that a strong tidal force can exaggerate an already loaded earthquake as a result pushing a small one to evolve into an acute tremor. Lead researcher Ide said, "When tides are very large, small earthquakes tend to grow a little larger." As per a report in …
Toxic haze that spread across Southeast Asia from Indonesian forest fires last year caused the deaths of about 100,000 people across the region, according to the first academic study of the health impact of the smog. The death toll was concentrated in Indonesia, which had about 92,000 excess deaths from …
Indonesia will in November become the first country in the world to export wood products to the European Union meeting new environmental standards in a move aimed at bolstering transparency and curbing illicit logging. Officials from both parties unveiled measures on Thursday to ensure timber exports to the trade bloc, …
Indonesia's highest Islamic council has issued a fatwa on burning land and forests, a government official said on Wednesday, in an effort to halt the toxic smog that blankets the region each year. The fatwa is not legally binding but is aimed at discouraging plantation companies and farmers from clearing …
According to the environmental conservation group Mongobay, the ministry rejected Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah's plea that 8,000 hectares of the park's "core zone" be changed to a "utilization zone" so that a Turkish company, Hitay Holdings, could pursue geothermal energy development there. In an August letter, Abdullah noted that the …
Borneo, home to animals like orangutans, rhinos, elephants, and proboscis monkeys is also host to some of the fastest plantation expansion in the world. Now, a new study published on 9 September in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports examines how much of this expansion has been happening at the …
The Indonesian environment ministry said they were sending a team to look into Korindo's operations in Papua. A Korindo spokesperson denied that the company had burned land intentionally, suggesting that the fires on its land were the government's fault, not the company's. Environmental campaigners are touring Korea this week to …
The motion was proposed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), with 18 co-sponsors, and adopted with a majority of IUCN members. Governments and NGOs are pushing to ban the commercial trade in pangolins, the world’s most trafficked mammal. They passed a motion last week at the IUCN World Conservation …
Economies in the Asia-Pacific region cannot sustain their present dynamic growth “unless water is brought into the equation” as the region faces a “crisis” in securing and managing the prime resource. A comprehensive report on water development in Asia-Pacific just released by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says that it …
Two Indonesian military commanders in Sumatra said this week that they were seeing more fires started at night and on the weekend in order to avoid the military’s more frequent daytime patrols. The commanding officer of Bukit Barisan barracks, two-star army general Lodewyk Pusung, told Indonesian press he also believed …
Asia Pacific’s financial institutions have begun to factor climate risks and opportunities into their activities, but they have a long way to go before they can fully unlock the multi-trillion dollar financing opportunity that climate change presents, a new report has found. Titled ‘Investing for the Climate in Asia’ and …
Twenty-four countries will participate in a large scale tsunami simulation exercise organized under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO on 7 and 8 September. Together, they will test standard operating procedures of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System including communications links between all stakeholders, as …
The Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean gave backing on Tuesday for an accord to curb carbon dioxide emissions from airlines in a widening of support to a first small developing nation vulnerable to climate change. At the weekend, China, the United States, the European Union and 16 surrounding nations …
A Korean palm oil company has been dropped by buyers after footage emerged that allegedly shows the illegal burning of vast tracts of tropical forest on lands it holds concessions for in Indonesia. Some of the world’s biggest palm oil trading producers including Wilmar, Musim Mas and IOI have stopped …
Illegal hunting in Democratic Republic of Congo has wiped out 70 percent of Eastern gorillas in the past two decades and pushed the world's biggest primate close to extinction, a Red List of endangered species showed on Sunday. Four of six species of great apes are now rated "critically endangered", …
Palm oil makes a big contribution to modern life as one of the most-widely used substances in food, cooking, cosmetics, medicines and a range of chemicals. But the industry that produces it is seriously harming the planet. That is the conclusion of a study of nearly 1,000 scientific papers about …
Plasmodium knowlesi and Plasmodium cynomolgi are two malaria parasites naturally transmissible between humans and wild macaque through mosquito vectors, while Plasmodium inui can be experimentally transmitted from macaques to humans. One of their major natural hosts, the long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis), is host to two other species of Plasmodium (Plasmodium …
