Indonesia

Indonesia is an incredible place. It is the largest archipelago in the world to form a single state, which consists of 5 main islands (Java, Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo and Sulawesi) and 30 smaller archipelagoes which include a total number of 18,110 islands and islets. 6000 of these are inhabited by humans, and there are a wide range of unique species that live on these islands.

These islands are in very different states in terms of its conservation status, with Borneo and Sumatra still having significant areas of rainforest, and with their wildlife still hanging on, but on Java animals such as the Javan tiger, and the Javan Orangutan have been lost. The Javan Rhino still clings on – with around 77 left. This is slightly less endangered than the Sumatran rhino but still in series danger of being lost. I hope over time for this page to grow to hundreds of pages and vast quantities of information, but we are only starting here.

Indonesia sightings board - note as pages are made for individual islands, their sightings boards will move to their page (this map is obviously at to big a scale to read it properly.

Links to areas to visit will appear below our list of articles that refer or are about Indonesia. Please note, while it is not possible to add sightings to this map above. This is because the whole country is is a specific regional ecosystem. Over time every area will become clickable, so that you can access the ecosystem and record sightings.

Help us build up a map of where wildlife has been seen. Add any sightings of mammals that you encounter. As this map starts to be used, we will greatly reduce how long sightings remain free for anyone to see, so that hunters and poachers cannot use this as a resource. The idea is that over time we can build up an idea of exactly where we should look for them.

Indonesia News

Javan rhinos: is the Indonesian government lying? misleading? or being straight with the world.

Tim
May 1, 2024

It appears that the counters of the Javan rhino, have continued to count animals which have not been seen for years. Given how much poaching has been going on, this seems much more than simply misleading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgwwjzQjn4s Unfortunately, this counting issue, takes the Javan rhino from a species which is recovering at an impressive rate, …...

Tim
March 27, 2024

I wrote a few moths ago, about a picture taken in Java, which purported to show a living Javan tiger. As with many similar photos, it was of low resolution, which in many situations, would appear suspicious. If you are on safari in Java, you would think that you would take a high resolution camera, …...

Tim
December 24, 2023

I wrote in February about how an assessment had found that 20% of palm oil plantations were illegal (to read click here). This latest assessment suggests that in its heartland, half are illegal. Riau province is this heartland. Illegal plantations within this area cover an area almost as large as Hawai, and hosts more than …...

Tim
April 30, 2023

The wildlife of Indonesia now often looks like relatively unique to those islands. This is not the natural state of affairs. 60,000 years ago, a cousin of the orangutan lived on the mainland. Unfortunately, what appears clear, is that humans were responsible for the extinction of these animals as with so many more. There are …...

Tim
November 19, 2022

The clean energy transition is accelerating in some parts of the world. It is often cheaper to install solar or wind turbines, than to continue to buy coal to keep using the coal power plant, never-the-less this has not stopped developing countries from failing to make the change.

Tim
September 2, 2022

The concern by those who work in tourism with the Komodo dragons seems quite justified. They fear that this enormous increase in price will put off people from visiting, and therefore completely destroy the tourism industry. It should be noted that this is merely the fee to visit the islands, anything the guides charge is …...

Tim
June 8, 2022

It seems that so long as the initial cause of the deforestation was not palm oil (or perhaps not the current owners of the palm oil farm?), then even if it is immediately converted into palm oil plantations, it can be counted as sustainable. This is absurd. It should obviously be the case that if …...

Tim
June 2, 2022

Many of the Indonesian forest reserves, have become paper parks, with much or most of the forestation and other vegetation lost. They clear land in the hope that they will eventually be given the title to the land to make their seizures legal. Under their new program “conservation partnership”, the settlers acknowledge that they cannot …...

Tim
March 24, 2022

The USA has rather embarrassed itself. A large minority of the country has kept stating things that were obviously foolish. In particular, Donald Trump has spent the 4 years of his administration undermining all of the science and therefore the gradual move towards acceptance of the the facts that most of the rest of the …...

Tim
February 23, 2022

Seemingly, often as a result of mapping issues (though this may not have been accidental) Unesco sites and land mapped as Orangutan habitat have been turned into plantations. The idea that 1/5 of the plantations fall into this category is hard to explain – not surprisingly this is explicitly illegal.

Tim
January 11, 2022

This proposal would mean that Indonesia could cut down all its rainforest and replace them with Palm Oil, and would have engaged in zero deforestation. This has to be condemned globally, There are myriad problems with this. The destruction of the rainforest would release billions of tonnes of carbon into the air. Palm oil, will …...

Tim
October 22, 2021

This encompasses an area about the size of South Carolina, and is made up of about 75% forest with the rest peat. Much wildlife live in these forests including orangutans, so this move is good for both carbon emissions and biodiversity.

Tim
August 17, 2021

The country of Indonesia consists of many islands. Due to their relative size, these islands have led to many subspecies of animals adapting. In the past tigers existed on at least three of these islands. These animals once lived on Java and Bali, but now there is only a small population in Sumatra. In Java …...

Tim
June 18, 2021

In a judgement handed down in 2017, a court ruled that the Indonesian government must unveil their maps showing what land use has been decided where. The government is still fighting. It is odd that they are still fighting. In recent years there have been multiple problems where plantations have seemingly been given permission in …...

Tim
March 17, 2021

I wrote the other day, about the ability of brewing palm oil, rather than creating huge estates to grow it. Perhaps these two issues could be combined to solve both problems Well a few months ago, Indonesia changed its regulations which would allow large areas of protected land to be cleared for food production.

Tim
December 20, 2020

It has come to light that two of the biggest paper pulp companies TPL and APRIL have been intentionally mislabeling their export materials.Paper grade pulp which they claimed to be exporting is used to make paper and packaging. However dissolving pulp, which they were actually exporting is far more valuable. As such they have cheated …...

Tim
December 18, 2020

The Indonesian government has decided to change the designation of large parts of the country from protected forest to available for food production.

Tim
July 15, 2018

The Indonesian government has promised to repair the damage done to the Tesso National Park. The park still has a population of Sumatran elephants and Sumatran tigers and as such is a highly important reserve that must remain. However much work is to be done as 75% of the park has been deforested and large …...

Tim
November 21, 2024

Life is hard in the Indonesian rainforest – compared to Africa and South America, there is very little to be found to eat (except in specific areas. As a result, orangutans become solitary, with the only time they are seen together is a mother with young, or a courting couple. Another problem, is demonstrated here …...

Tim
November 5, 2024

Of the slightly over 8 billion humans on earth, 4.641 billion, or just under 60% live in Asia. While this is expected to grow to 5.25 billion people in 2055 it will only be 54% (due to increasing populations elsewhere in the world) of global population at the time. So, what is the problem? An …...

Click on the areas of the map to see pages that we have created about smaller parts of this island chain. As we get links which you can use for your travel will be added.

List of areas linked

Bali wildlife

Indonesia

Indonesia sightings board - note as pages are made for individual islands, their sightings boards will move to their page (this map is obviously at to big a scale to read it properly.

Indonesia News

Javan rhinos: is the Indonesian government lying? misleading? or being straight with the world.

Indonesia to start a study to see whether the Javan Tiger is actually extinct (44 years after it was declared so)

Half of plantations in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland are illegal

The Indonesian rhinos that once roamed across much of Asia

Indonesia has signed a $20 billion deal with the G7 to accelerate their clean energy transition

Workers strike as Indonesia increases fee to visit Komodo dragons is increase by more than 18 times to £205

A study found that 3/4 of oil palm concessions in Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo certified by RSPO were forest or wildlife habitat just 30 years ago!

In an effort to deal with encroachment into national parks Indonesia is trying a new policy

Only Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have a higher proportion of climate change denial than the USA

20% of Indonesia palm oil sites lie within forest estates – thereby illegal by definition

Indonesias leading University has proposed classifying Palm oil as a forest crop – This is insane, read on to find more – urgent condemnation needed

In July local leaders in 9 districts in indonesia promised to protect 50% of peat forest and other important systems

Illegal trade in Indonesian leopards is booming

Indonesian government is still fighting to hide bad behaviour

Indonesia has recently changed its rules, designating large areas once protected forests for food production

So the paper and pulp industry of Indonesia is cheating their government too: what a surprise

Urgent news update – Indonesia deforestation

Can Tesso National Park in Indonesia be saved and restored?

Orangutans climb incredibly high – no space for acrophobia

Is Asia’s plummeting fertility rate a going to lead to a crisis, or might it help save the planet?