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.

An investigation by the US-based non-profit Rainforest Action Network has found evidence of illegal clearance of critically endangered Sumatran elephant habitat in the Leuser Ecosystem, in the far west of Indonesia.

The son of a local parliament chief has been named a suspect over illegal land clearing in the Singkil Swamp Wildlife Reserve, a protected area in Indonesia that is home to the densest population of Sumatran orangutans.

Illegalities by palm oil companies are a significant factor in the widespread conflicts between them and rural communities in Indonesian Borneo, according to a recent paper published in Applied Geography.

Pulp and paper giant April has carved a three kilometre canal through carbon-rich peatlands in Sumatra in violation of Indonesian government regulations intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions and prevent another annual return of catastrophic forest fires.

Analysis of plantations in Riau Province, Indonesia, suggests that the majority of oil palm plantations are operating without permission from the Ministry and Environment and Forestry.

The province of Aceh, Indonesia, lost more than 4,000 hectares of forest in the first half of 2016, largely due to “legally questionable, if not downright illegal” palm oil expansion, according to a report on Mongabay.