PEKANBARU, Indonesia, 25 June 2013 (Associated Press) — Indonesian authorities have arrested eight farmers for setting illegal fires on Sumatra island to clear land after numerous blazes created a thick haze choking parts of Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, police said Tuesday. The farmers were arrested Monday and Tuesday after being caught “red-handed,” said local police […]
By Birchard Kellogg10 June 2013 (mongabay.com) – In a chilly rain on Sunday, in a town just a few kilometers beyond the edge of a protected Sumatran rainforest, a young orangutan sat perched on a piece of plywood and grabbed the metal wires of his tiny cage. He has sat in that cage for six […]
By Manirajan Ramasamy, Sharon Chen, and Yoga Rusmana; Editing by Stanley James 23 June 2013 (Bloomberg) – Malaysia declared a state of emergency in some areas after air pollution from illegal burning of forests and peat lands in Indonesia reached hazardous levels, while Singapore breathed easier as winds shifted direction. Prime Minister Najib Razak signed […]
By Adam Voiland19 June 2013 On 19 June 2013, NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites captured striking images of smoke billowing from illegal wildfires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The smoke blew east toward southern Malaysia and Singapore, and news media reported that thick clouds of haze had descended on Singapore, pushing pollution to record […]
(Rainforest Rescue) – Perched atop the remains of the last tree, an orangutan looks helplessly on what was until recently the forest he was living in but is now only ruins. Armed with chainsaws and bulldozers, workers of Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA), a palm oil company, have completely destroyed the rainforest for miles. Three other […]
25 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Mobile device giant Samsung has admitted to using tin sourced from a controversial mining operation on the Indonesian island of Bangka, where unregulated mining kills 150 miners a year and causes substantial environmental damage, reports the Guardian and Mongabay-Indonesia. Samsung’s admission came after a campaign by Friends of the Earth, […]
Jeremy Hance18 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – After three months, officials still don’t know for certain what killed at least 14 Bornean elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis) in the Malaysian state of Sabah. However tests do indicate that the herd perished from a “caustic intoxicant,” possibly ingested accidentally or just as easily intentionally poisoned. A distinct subspecies, […]
By Jeremy Hance8 April 2013 (mongabay.com) – Less than 100 Sumatran rhinos survive in the world today, according to a bleak new population estimate by experts. The last survey in 2008 estimated that around 250 Sumatran rhinos survived, but that estimate now appears optimistic and has been slashed by 60 percent. However conservationists are responding […]
[cf. Shadow banking grows to $67 trillion industry, regulators say] By Gerard Ryle, Marina Walker Guevara, Michael Hudson, Nicky Hager, Duncan Campbell, and Stefan Candea3 April 2013 (icij.org) – A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men […]
By Avery Fellow 25 February 2013 (Bloomberg BNA) – Shareholders are filing resolutions asking companies to disclose physical risks posed by climate change for the first time this proxy season, according to representatives of sustainable investor groups. Shareholders also are continuing to file an increasing number of sustainability related resolutions asking companies to set greenhouse […]
