At least four pulpwood suppliers and three palm oil plantations named suspects for allegations on Riau wildfires in June-July 2013. Some of these suspected companies are timber suppliers to Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resource International Limited (APRIL), a newspaper report said this week.
As the man-made catastrophe of forest fire and haze returns to Riau, citizens of Pelalawan have to leave their homes and be on the alert to prevent fire coming to their remaining land, while some students fainted as schools closed in the district and the province’s capital city.
Fires hotspots likely got its peak this month on Tuesday (27 August) seeing the 5th largest number of hotspots (758) recorded since 1 June this year, as 26% of that found inside the Tesso Nilo complex.
Sumatra’s Riau province is suffering Indonesia’s worst fire season in recent years with serious smoke choking the region and neighboring Singapore and southern Malaysia. Eyes on the Forest has been tracking forest and land cover change and those who drive it in Riau since the early 1990s.
At least 6772 fires hotspots were detected accumulatively in Riau Province in period of 1-23 June 2013, based on MODIS Fires satellite monitoring that analyzed by Eyes on the Forest this week.
Fifteen wild Sumatran elephants had been killed in Riau province since January this year following the deaths of three female elephants in Tesso Nilo forest block as officials believed they were poisoned.
Human and Sumatran tiger conflicts are escalating in Riau province in recent months as two endangered species were found dead by snares and a teenager laborer attacked to death by a tiger in three separate incidents.
EoF News (PEKANBARU)— An open letter written by professional scientists working for leading academic and research institutions was published on Monday to alert general public of misleading practices and claims by the World Growth Institute (WGI) and International Trade Strategies Global (ITS) who promoted industrial logging, pulpwood and palm oil plantations through public opinions.
Videos and photos captured in May and June 2010 released to the public for the first time today - caught a male Sumatran tiger walking straight to a camera and sniffing it.
Walhi Riau, Scale Up, JIKALAHARI, Greenpeace and Forum Komunikasi Pemuka Masyarakat Riau (FKPMR/Riau Community Leaders Forum) ) paid condolences and strongly denounced the violent incident claiming one casualty and another one was hospitalized with heavy wounded in Kenegerian Pucuk Rantau village, Kuantan Singingi district, Riau province on Tuesday.
After a month in operation, specially designed video cameras installed by WWF-Indonesia’s researchers seeking to record tigers in the Sumatran jungle caught the mother tiger and her cubs on film as they stopped to sniff and check out the camera trap.
In the wake of the deaths of six people from tiger attacks in Sumatra’s Jambi Province in less than a month, conservationists are calling for an urgent crackdown on the clearing of natural forest in the province as a matter of public safety.
The Indonesian province of Riau has pledged to halt the destruction of its forests and peatlands; a move that will prevent billions of tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere.
In an investigative report published today by Eyes on the Forest, evidence shows that a new logging road in Riau Province -- strongly indicated as illegally built by companies connected to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) -- is cutting into the heart of Sumatra’s largest contiguous peatland forest, a rare hydrological ecosystem that acts as one of the planet’s biggest carbon stores.
Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.
Key points on the environmental impact of palm oil (mongabay.com, May 15, 2007)-- The booming market for palm oil is driving record production but fueling rising concerns over the environmental impact of the supposedly "green" bioenergy source.
Riau NGOs Network for Forest Rescue (Jikalahari), University of Riau and representatives of 3 sub-districts in Kampar Peninsula today call for a halt to conversion of peatland-rich forests in the region to avoid escalating carbon (CO2) release.
Despite Minister of Forestry and Riau Governor have ordered all related sides to reforest grand forest park of Syarief Kasim in Pekanbaru, in August this year, thousand hectares of oil palm plantation are still planted.
A Greenpeace team of investigators has discovered widespread destruction of Sumatra's ancient forests, caused by fires which are threatening to burn out of control.
Several NGOs are calling on the Government to stop granting concessions for conversion and land clearing on peatlands, citing data that shows the major factor inciting this year's forest fires is forest conversion, mainly on peat soil sites.