The Land & Climate Podcast

One month ago, Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated as the new president of Indonesia. An investigation by The Gecko Project has revealed that Subianto has invested in or owned companies involved with rainforest logging, coal mining, palm oil production, and industrial fishing - but many of the companies appear to be inactive. Do these investments representing potentially concerning conflicts of interest, or are they par for the course? Are his own claims of enormous wealth accurate or exaggerated? Alasdair speaks to the author of the Gecko Project research, Margareth Aritonang, who is also the Pulitzer Center's 2024 Rainforest Investigations Fellow for Indonesia. Further reading: Read Margareth's reporting here. 'Activists fear supercharged ‘business as usual’ under Indonesia’s new president', Mongabay, November 2024The 'Indonesian environmental activists keep dying in suspicious circumstances', Gecko Project, September 2024 Click here to read our investigation into the UK biomass supply chain, or watch a clip from the BBC Newsnight documentary.

This year, Land and Climate Review’s first investigative series has documented more than 11,000 breaches of environmental law at North American wood pellet mills. Alasdair MacEwen speaks to Camille Corcoran, whose recent reporting was published with The Times in the UK, and Bertie Harrison-Broninski, who normally co-hosts with Alasdair, but here discusses Land and Climate Review’s Canadian investigations, which were featured on BBC Newsnight. They discuss the process of uncovering environmental violations at wood pellet mills owned by Drax Group, which operates the UK’s largest power station, and how residents in Mississippi and British Columbia say they have been affected by the pollution from the mills. Audio engineering by Vasko Kostovski and Podcast House. Read the investigations: ‘Drax-owned facilities broke environmental rules more than 11,000 times in the US’, Land and Climate Review, November 2024‘The Dirty Business of Clean Energy: The U.K. Power Company Polluting Small Towns Across the U.S.’, The Intercept, September 2024‘Drax’s pellet mills violated environmental law 189 times in Canada’, Land and Climate Review, May 2024‘Drax faces penalty after Canadian biomass plant fails to submit pollution report’, The Independent, October 2023Related episodes: Are Canada’s sustainable forestry claims accurate? - with Richard Robertson from Stand.EarthDoes bioenergy increase CO2 emissions more than burning coal? - with John Sterman from MITWhat is BECCS and what does it mean for climate policy? - with Daniel Quiggin from Chatham HouseClick here to read our investigation into the UK biomass supply chain, or watch a clip from the BBC Newsnight documentary.

As the UN Biodiversity Conference draws to a close Bertie speaks to María Arango, a lawyer at the international human rights organization Forest People’s Programme, about the impacts of the sugar cane industry on Black communities in the Cauca River Valley region of western Colombia. A new report titled The Green Illusion finds that more than 80% of the region’s wetlands have been drained in order to plant sugar cane, resulting in Afro-descendant peoples being displaced from their ancestral lands and stripped of vital resources.Bertie and María discuss the report’s findings and how international summits such as COP16 present key opportunities to protect the rights of Indigenous people that live in biodiversity hotspots.Further reading: Read the full report: The Green Illusion: Impacts of the Sugar Cane Monoculture on the Biodiversity and Livelihoods of the Black People in the Cauca River Valley, October 2024The Green Monster: Human Rights Impacts of the Sugarcane Industry on Black Communities in Colombia, June 2021'Colombia’s cane industry efficient but potentially damaging', Mongabay, March 2017Click here to read our investigation into the UK biomass supply chain, or watch a clip from the BBC Newsnight documentary.

“In 2022, Indonesia only consumed about 70,000 tonnes of wood for electricity. In 2023, we consumed almost half a million.”Alasdair speaks to Timer Manurung, Chairman of the Indonesian NGO Auriga Nusantara, about a new report he worked on with five other environmental charities. Titled Unheeded Warnings, the report warns that the Indonesian government’s plans for biomass power risk harming 10 million hectares of untouched primary forest, and "the deforestation of an area roughly 35 times the size of Jakarta — resulting in CO2 emissions almost five hundred times higher than current levels.”Alasdair and Timer discuss the investigation process, the scale of these potential impacts, and the Indonesian Government. To see photos from Timer's investigation, click here. Further reading: Read the full report, which includes maps outlining the threatened and logged forest areas: Unheeded Warnings: Forest Biomass Threats to Tropical Forests in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, Auriga Nusantara, October 2024'Rush to Burn Wood for Energy Threatens Indonesian and Southeast Asian Forests & Communities', Auriga Nusantara, October 2024'The President's new clothes', The Gecko Project, October 2024Bioenergy Explained, Land and Climate Review, 2022Click here to read our investigation into the UK biomass supply chain, or watch a clip from the BBC Newsnight documentary.