Almost 7,000 hectares of forest were destroyed in the Leuser Ecosystem, in the western Indonesian province of Aceh, in 2017.

A new analysis of three major agricultural firms implicated in illegal deforestation reveals how it affected profitability, led to multi-billion dollar decline in market capitalisation and huge losses for investors.

A study examined 15 landscapes on the island of Sumatra that provide habitat for the tiger and found that a fifth of the forest cover had been lost since 2000, largely due to palm oil plantations.

Forest loss in Indonesia is reaching the highest levels since detailed measurements began according to new data published this week by the World Resources Institute, amid weak law enforcement and a failure to address the root causes of the crisis. Total tree cover loss was recorded as 2.4 million hectares in 2016, up from 1.7m ha in 2015 and exceeding the previous record, set in 2012.

A state court in Indonesia is failing to enforce a Supreme Court ruling requiring a palm oil firm to pay US$26.5 million for illegal clearing with fire in the Tripa Peat Swamp, a vital orangutan habitat in the Leuser Ecosystem.

A new report has exposed allegations of ongoing worker exploitation by Indonesian food giant Indofood, the country’s sole producer of PepsiCo branded snack food.

Oil palm plantation firms are continuing to clear rainforest in the Leuser ecosystem on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, in defiance of a moratorium on deforestation. Leuser lost 3,941 hectares of forest cover between January and July 2017, according to local watchdog Forest, Nature and Environment of Aceh (HAkA).

The government of Papua New Guinea appears to have turned the notion of post-truth politics into an art form, making so many inconsistent claims on the legal status of the plethora of fraudulently issued plantation licenses in the country that it seems prudent to ask whether it knows where the truth lies anymore.

An Indonesian company and its Chinese partner have pushed ahead with an industrial wood plantation in a forest in Borneo, flouting a moratorium on the drainage and exploitation of Indonesia’s peatlands.

The Indonesian government is failing to make firms convicted of illegal deforestation pay more than US$1 billion in fines, hampering efforts to restore the peat and forest habitats damaged by their operations.

Wiratno, Director General of Ecosystem and Natural Resources Conservation of the Environment and Forestry Ministry, told a seminar that the plantations were occupying the ‘forest estate’ without permission of the central government.

Some of the world’s biggest consumer brands may have sourced palm oil from illegally deforested land on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to an investigation by the Rainforest Action Network.

Three banks majority-owned by the state – Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia – have ploughed billions of dollars into an industry that is systematically undermining the rule of law and efforts to repair Indonesia’s reputation as a climate villain in the wake of catastrophic forest fires.

Timber from illegal palm oil concessions has been certified as ‘legal’ under Indonesia’s state forestry certification scheme, according to a new report from two NGOs.

The company at the heart of a controversial palm oil development in Papua has claimed that the provincial and district governments encouraged it to commit a criminal offence because they were “impatient” to see the project begin.