Mongabay Explores

Once drained for palm oil or other agricultural uses, Indonesia's peatlands become very fire prone, putting people and rich flora and fauna--from orchids to orangutans--at risk.

Over a million hectares of carbon-rich peatlands burned in Indonesia in 2019, creating a public health crisis not seen since 2015 when the nation's peatland restoration agency was formed to address the issue.

To understand what is being done to restore peatlands, we speak with the Deputy Head of the National Peatland Restoration Agency, Budi Wardhana, and with Dyah Puspitaloka, a researcher on the value chain, finance and investment team at CIFOR, the Center for International Forestry Research.

Restoration through agroforestry that benefits both people and planet is one positive avenue forward, which Dyah discusses in her remarks.

For more on this topic, see the recent report at Mongabay, "Indonesia renews peat restoration bid to include mangroves, but hurdles abound."

Episode artwork: Haze from fires in a peatland logging concession pollutes the air in Jambi Province, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Greenpeace Media Library.

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The Sumatran rhino is a ridiculously cute but cryptic species that teeters on the brink: with an estimated 80 individuals left in the wilds of its super dense rainforest home, experts are also divided on *where* they are. With conflicting and sometimes misleading data on their whereabouts, it is exceedingly difficult to track them down, and to therefore protect them.

To discuss this 'rhino search and rescue' as she calls it, host Mike DiGirolamo contacted repeat guest Wulan Pusparini, who studied them as a species conservation specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society before pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Conservation at Oxford University.

Articles discussed in this episode:

• Rarely seen Sumatran rhinos are now even more elusive as threats close in
• Signs, but no sightings: The phantom rhinos of Sumatra's Bukit Barisan Selatan

Episode artwork: Rosa is the wild-born female Sumatran rhino noted by Wulan during the interview who now lives at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park. Image courtesy of Terri Roth/Cincinnati Zoo.

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The Sumatran orangutan is a lowland species that has adapted to life among this Indonesian island's highlands, as it has lost favored habitat to an array of forces like deforestation, road projects, plus the trafficking of young ones to be sold as pets, so this great ape is increasingly in trouble.

On this episode, Mongabay speaks with the founding director of Orangutan Information Centre in North Sumatra, Panut Hadisiswoyo, about these challenges plus some hopeful signs.

His center is successfully involving local communities in this work: over 2,400 hectares of rainforest have been replanted by local women since 2008, creating key habitat for the orangutans, which also provides the villagers with useful agroforestry crops, for instance.

Related reading from this episode:

• Deforestation spurred by road project creeps closer to Sumatra wildlife haven
• Call for prosecution of Indonesian politician who kept baby orangutan as pet
• 'We are losing': Q&A with The Orangutan Project's Leif Cocks on saving the great ape

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts. We also offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for our sister show, the Mongabay Newscast, providing instant access to our latest episodes and previous ones.

If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

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The Sumatran elephant is a small species of Asian elephant whose numbers are dwindling as their lowland forest habitats are converted to crops like oil palms. Experts say that Indonesia has 10 years to turn this trend around and save them from the eternity of extinction--and that doing so will have many additional benefits for human communities and wildlife.

To explore the issues surrounding the species' conservation, we spoke with 3 guests: Leif Cocks, the founder of the International Elephant Project, Sapariah "Arie" Saturi, Mongabay-Indonesia's Senior Writer who's reported regularly on the issue; and Dr. Wishnu Sukmantoro an elephant expert at Indonesia's Bogor Agricultural University.

Two articles Arie reported for Mongabay on the topic:

• As a forest in Sumatra disappears for farms and roads, so do its elephants
• On plantations and in 'protected' areas, Sumatran elephants keep turning up dead

Episode artwork courtesy of World Wildlife Fund's Sumatran elephant program.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for our sister series, the Mongabay Newscast, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips.

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The wildlife rich island of Sumatra is experiencing a road building boom, causing some of its iconic creatures to be seen by construction workers: a photo of a Sumatran tiger crossing a highway work-site went viral this summer, for example.

This smallest of all tiger subspecies still needs its space despite its stature: up to 250 square kilometers for each one's territory. A single road cut into their forest habitat encroaches on these key areas, where less than 400 of these critically endangered animals persist.

Road building creates access to impenetrable forests that are home to all kinds of creatures, though, enabling illegal hunting and fragmenting habitats.

To discuss the impact of - and alternatives to - such infrastructure projects as the billion dollar Trans-Sumatran Highway, we reached Hariyo "Beebach" Wibisono, a research fellow at the San Diego Zoo Global & director of SINTAS Indonesia, plus Bill Laurance, a distinguished professor at James Cook University, who is also head of ALERT, the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers.

Related reading:

• Tiger on the highway: Sighting in Sumatra causes a stir, but is no surprise
• China's Belt and Road poised to transform the Earth, but at what cost?
• Batang Toru: Worker feared dead as landslide hits quake-prone dam in orangutan habitat

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.

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Episode artwork: a critically endangered Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica). Image courtesy of the Zoological Society of London.

If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

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North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA proved them to be unique. As with many animals in Sumatra, they are amazing creatures that are critically threatened, with a maximum of 800 individuals estimated to be living in an increasingly fragmented habitat.

Now a hydroelectric dam proposed for the center of the animals' tiny territory further challenges this special species' chances of survival, as well as that of 23 other threatened species which also live in the area.

To understand what's interesting about this animal and how the proposed Batang Toru dam would impact it, we speak with a biologist who helped discover its uniqueness, Dr. Puji Rianti of IPB University in Bogor, and Mongabay staff writer Hans Nicholas Jong in Jakarta, who has been covering the controversy over the project, as it's been called into question by activists and funders alike and faces numerous delays.

The saga is definitely not over, and this episode explains why.

• Dam that threatens orangutan habitat faces three-year delay
• Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
• Allegation of forged signature casts shadow over China-backed dam in Sumatra
• Eight species, including Tapanuli orangutan, make first appearance on list of most endangered primates

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for our sister series, the Mongabay Newscast, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

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Sumatra contains some of the largest tracts of intact rainforest left in the world, but it's at the center of a complicated web of deforestation drivers, many of which began during the Dutch colonial era and are now spurred further by corruption and the global demand for cheap palm oil used in a wide range of consumer products.

To understand the rapid expansion of industrial-scale agribusinesses that market both palm oil and pulp & paper to the global market from this, the largest island in the Indonesian Archipelago, podcast host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with Nur "Yaya" Hidayati and Philip Jacobson.

Hidayati is the national executive director of Walhi, the largest and oldest environmental advocacy NGO in Indonesia, while Jacobson is a contributing editor at Mongabay who has been covering Indonesia for six years.

They discuss what causes the massive deforestation in Sumatra in particular and Indonesia in general, why it's so difficult to control, what exacerbates efforts to stop it, and what can be done globally and locally to slow or stop the expansion of continued land exploitation.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for this our sister series, the Mongabay Newscast, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.

If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

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Sumatran rhinos are unlike anything else in this world: small in stature and docile by nature, they sport a coat of fur and sing songs reminiscent of a dolphin. In other words, this ancient species surprises and enchants anyone lucky enough to encounter it.

But Sumatran rhinos are also one of the most endangered large mammals on the planet. While its population is difficult to pinpoint, experts estimate there could be as many as 80 – or as few as 30 – still in the wild, leaving their future in doubt.

To understand the wonder and worry associated with this species, Mongabay Explores podcast host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with two guests, Wulan Pusparini and Jeremy Hance, about the unique challenges of conserving them, what is being done for them currently, and what needs to happen in order to save them from extinction.

Pusparini studied them as a species conservation specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society before pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Conservation at Oxford University, while Hance is Mongabay's senior correspondent who's traveled Sumatra extensively to cover the species (and is the author of a new book about such travels, "Baggage").

To learn more, see Mongabay's twin series authored by Hance on the conservation efforts and the scientific advances made in their captive breeding, here:

• "Is Anyone Going to Save the Sumatran Rhino?"
• "The Rhino Debacle"

Music heard during this episode is by Sorbatua Siallagan, chief of the Dolok Parmonangan Indigenous community. The song is called "Gondang tu Mulajadi," where Gondang means 'music' and also 'prayer,' and Mulajadi means God. This kind of music is typically performed when Indigenous communities in Batak areas of Sumatra conduct rituals. Series theme music heard at the beginning and end is called "Putri Tangguk" and was licensed via Pond5.

Sounds of Sumatran rhinos heard during the show courtesy of Save the Rhino International.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for our sister series, the Mongabay Newscast, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

If you enjoy Mongabay's podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

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Feedback is always welcome: [email protected].

"Sumatra is like a fossil relic of rare species...a giant, rhino horn-shaped island blanketed in the richest rainforest you can imagine...there's nothing like it," one of our guests declares.

The 6th largest island in the world and the 2nd largest economy in Indonesia, Sumatra is the only place in the world where you can you find tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans all living together in an incredibly rich landscape of rainforests that, until recently, were largely untouched by human activities.

But that's changing rapidly, and this series from Mongabay Explores dives into what's special about Sumatra, its amazing biodiversity heritage, and what's at stake as forests fall for uses like oil palm plantations, mines, and hydropower dams. We'll also discuss positive trends for conservation and solutions that meet human and nonhuman needs.

Host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with two guests: Rudi Putra, a biologist who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for his inspiring conservation work in Sumatra and who now serves as chairman of the Leuser Conservation Forum, plus Greg McCann, a biologist and Assistant Professor at Taiwan's Chang Gung University, whose People Resources and Conservation Foundation team is exploring and documenting the incredible richness of Sumatra so that it can be better conserved.

View all of Mongabay's news coverage from Sumatra here, visit Rudi Putra's organization Leuser Conservation Forum's website to learn more about their work, and Greg McCann's organization PRCF has multiple projects in Indonesia described here (and details on the project in Dolok Simalalaksa/ Hadabuan Hills he discusses are here).

We offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for our sister series, the Mongabay Newscast, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

If you enjoy Mongabay's podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts.

Series theme song "Putri Tangguk" is inspired by traditional Indonesian gamelan music and licensed via POND5.

Episode artwork: Sunset over Sumatran rainforest by Rhett Butler/Mongabay.

Feedback is always welcome: [email protected].

Hellbenders are North America's largest salamanders, living in rivers and growing to an incredible length of over two feet. Eastern newts are tiny and terrestrial, but both are susceptible to a fungal pathogen called Bsal. While Bsal has yet to make an appearance in the global hotspot of salamander diversity that is North America, it has wreaked havoc on populations in Europe, so biologists worry its impact could be even worse if it does.

Eastern newts' susceptibility to Bsal coupled with their notable mobility mean they could act as "super-spreaders" of Bsal if the fungus ever gets to North America. For hellbenders, which are already listed as endangered and suffer from habitat degradation, a new pathogen is hardly good news.

On this final episode of the first season we speak with Dr. Becky Hardman from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Dr. Anna Longo of the University of Florida about these fascinating and unique species, and discuss what is being done to prepare for a Bsal invasion that experts say is inevitable.

More on this topic:

• Super-spreaders: How the curious life of a newt could ignite a pandemic
• Hellbenders threatened by disease & stress
• Mongabay's article series on Bsal is here
• United States Bsal Task Force website

To hear Part 1 of this season, see, "Mongabay Explores the Great Salamander Pandemic, Part 1: Are we ready?" -- Part 2 discussed the amazing diversity of salamanders, "Why are salamanders so diverse in North America?" Parts 3, 4, & 5 are also helpful in understanding the conservation community's response to the threat (and some opportunities) presented by Bsal.

Based on a multi-year article series that Mongabay.com published about Bsal, episodes of this podcast season delve further to learn what's known about this issue, now.

If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to listen and subscribe. Be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Mongabay Newscast, via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you get podcasts.

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, visit the link above for details.

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