When the palm oil industry began growing rapidly in Indonesia in the 1980s, the government developed a scheme aimed at ensuring communities would benefit. To gain subsidized funding, companies routinely promised communities as much as 80% of their plantations, in plots known as “plasma.” By 2007, the principle was baked into law, with companies required […]
MUARA JAMBI, Indonesia In a wood-plank house on the banks of the Batang Hari River, a dukun, or traditional healer, named Siti Hawa, 62, handles a grass-like plant topped with white and purple flowers. Its leaves can cure fever, she says, while the flowers can be boiled to soothe a cough. Outside, Siti grows […]
JAKARTA In 2019, fires raged through Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands, sparked by the deliberate burning of land for agriculture, and fanned by an El Niño system bringing drier-than-usual weather conditions. Ultimately, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry would put the total affected area at 1.64 million hectares (4.05 million acres), an area half […]