a new capital in the jungle

This August, Indonesia is due to inaugurate its new capital, Nusantara, located in a remote site surrounded by the rainforest of Borneo. I took this as an opportunity to look more closely at the conservation and climate challenges the country is facing. The resulting feature is out today:

From Jakarta to the jungle

Current Biology Volume 34, Issue 14, 22 July 2024, Pages R663-R665

FREE access to full text and PDF download

UPDATE 29.10.2025 The Guardian reports the new capital is turning into a ghost town as the new political leadership has no intention of actually moving there ...

See also my Mastodon thread where I highlighted all CB features of 2024.

The thread for 2023 is here .

President Joko Widodo and others planting meranti tembaga (Shorea leprosula) trees in the new capital city of Indonesia, Nusantara. (Photo: BPMI President’s Secretariat/Muchlis Jr.)

rang-tan in trouble

Among the many kinds of animals at risk of extinction, orangutans are getting a relatively good amount of attention, so I hadn't felt the need to cover their plight so far, but with the recent court ruling in Indonesia putting the rarest of the three extant species in acute danger, I caved in and wrote my very first piece about them. Oh and the "rang-tan" video may have played a role in that decision process as well.

The resulting feature is out today:

Hard times for orangutans

Current Biology Volume 29, issue 7, pages R225-R227, April 1, 2019

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The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was only identified as a separate species in 2017 and is the most threatened of the three surviving species of orangutan. (Photo: Tim Laman/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).)

world on fire

Only recently, I wrote a feature explaining how fire is part of the natural cycle of life for many biotopes around the world. This is definitely not the case for the Indonesian peat lands and forests that have been burning for several months, through to early November. These fires were a major environmental catastrophe caused by a combination of factors including an exceptionally strong El Niño, the use of fire to clear land for agriculture, and the draining of peat lands. With its complex connections to global climate and trade, this catastrophe may well be a taste of what the future holds, as I explain in my latest feature, out now:

A fire with global connections
Current Biology Volume 25, Issue 23 December 07, 2015, Pages R1107-R1109

Summary and open access to the full text.

PS: Underlining my point re. global connections, publication of this feature was delayed by severe flooding in Chennai, India (where typesetting and production for Current Biology is done), which may also be due to the exceptionally strong El Niño happening right now.

Greenpeace observers found new oil-palm seedlings planted in freshly burnt lands, demonstrating the connection between the fires and the deforestation for palm oil plantations. (Photo: Ardiles Rante/Greenpeace.)