Mongabay.org

The first installment of Indonesia for Sale, an in-depth collaborative series with The Gecko Project on the corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land rights crisis, has been published at Mongabay.com. It details how in the post-Suharto vacuum, local officials enriched themselves and their families by converting massive areas of Indonesia’s rainforests and communal farmland into private, for-profit oil palm plantations. Here’s some early acclaim from our peers in the media:

• “This is absolutely impressive. Investigative reporting of this scale is certainly a rare gem in Southeast Asia’s journalism scene.” – an editor at The Mekong Eye
• “This is literally the most incredible piece of investigative reporting on Indonesian palm oil I’ve ever read.” – investigative journalist for Harper’s and The New Yorker

Read the first feature here and watch the spellbinding video trailer for the series here.