Tag: Indonesia

(Reuters) - In July 2010, U.S. investor Todd Lemons and Russian energy giant Gazprom believed they were just weeks from winning final approval for a landmark forest preservation project in Indonesia.

A year later, the project is close to collapse, a casualty of labyrinthine Indonesian bureaucracy, opaque laws and a secretive palm oil company.

The Rimba Raya project, on the island of Borneo, is part of a United Nations-backed scheme designed to reward poorer nations that protect their carbon-rich jungles.

Twin disasters - a tsunami and a volcano eruption - have hit Indonesia. At least 154 people have been killed in the tsunami, while more than 28 died when Mount Merapi erupted. Thousands were forced to flee and seek refuge in shelters. Scientists had warned that pressure building beneath the volcano's lava dome could trigger one of the most powerful blasts in years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On a misty mountaintop on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, scientists for the first time in more than eight decades have observed a living pygmy tarsier, one of the planet's smallest and rarest primates.

Indonesian authorities have pledged to stop the loss of forests and species in Sumatra, one of the world's most ecologically important islands.

Representatives of the island's 10 provinces, national government and the environment group WWF launched the deal at the World Conservation Congress.

Sumatra has lost about half of its forest cover in the last 20 years.

It is home to a number of important and iconic species such as the tiger, orangutan, rhinoceros and elephant.