climate… Present and Persistent Palm Oil Problems 27 Jun 2018 The IUCN Oil Palm Task Force has just published a review of the current conundrums of industrial oil palm crops in the tropics. Land-clearing for plantations geard toward international palm oil production remain…
disasters… Palm Oil reporting and interactive map 30 Jun 2017 The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) developed SPOTT to report on some of the main drivers of tropical deforestation and habitat loss. They've released transparency scores and assessments of the major palm…
climate… The Smoke of Centuries: Indonesia’s Fires 9 Nov 2015 The fires in Indonesia burn rainforest trees that have grown and fed and housed orangutans for decades or centuries, and peat that has stored carbon for centuries or millennia. George Monbiot…
education… Saving What Matters: Taking Sustainability Personally 20 Sep 201520 Sep 2015 I was asked to deliver a talk to the School of Arts, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University last week. As I was preparing, I recorded a rehearsal version…
disasters… Leuser Under Threat Again 14 Sep 2015 And yet another sad but important recent article related to my upcoming talk, this time on the Leuser Ecosystem (where I studied orangutans at Suaq Balimbing and Ketambe research sites in…
disasters… Latest article on the Palm Oil threat to the Leuser Ecosystem 23 Jul 2015 A recent summary of the current challenges facing Leuser, where I went 16 years ago to study orangutans, then watched their home being desecrated by the relentless chainsaws. "Right now, huge swaths…
education… Conservation Drones? 4 Sep 20148 Sep 2014 When I was slogging through the swamps and slipping down the mud-slicked trails of Sumatra, following orangutans, I often daydreamed about how the right tech would make the job so…
climate… Palm Oil Updates from UCS 25 Aug 2014 Union of Concerned Scientists is starting a new campaign to get McDonald's to "make a firm commitment to use only deforestation-free palm oil." "Tell McDonald's to go deforestation-free!" Act Now »…
Living Systems… The geometry of the human handprint 22 Aug 201422 Aug 2014 Take a moment to observe a scene somewhere not crafted by human hands: a forest, a creek bed, a meadow, a hillside, a leaf. How often do you see right…
climate… News from Indonesia’s Forests 14 Aug 201414 Aug 2014 Visiting Mongabay.com/Mongabay.org is always an emotional roller-coaster. The reporting is great, and what they have to say is... often not so great. The latest news out of Indonesia (especially Sumatra) is…
Ponderings of a Perplexed Primate 