Fires are a major threat to sustainably managed plantations, annihilating assets that took years to grow and nurture. Recognising the danger and damage that fires cause, and keenly aware that a ground-up, partnership approach is needed in order for any solution to be effective, APRIL established the Fire-Free Village Programme in 2015.

The Fire Free Alliance (FFA) marked its first anniversary yesterday taking stock of the remarkable progress it has made over the past year and the work that remains ahead. Launched on 29 February 2016, FFA started with founding members APRIL, Asian Agri, IDH, Musim Mas, PM.Haze, and Wilmar, who collectively wanted to contribute to a solution to Indonesia’s persistent fire and haze problems with a focus on fire prevention through community engagement.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on NUS Giving. Reprinted with permission.

Ms Belinda Tanoto strongly believes in spending a lot of time with stakeholders on the ground to discover the real issues that can help shape philanthropic strategy. The youngest daughter of Mr Sukanto Tanoto and Mrs Tinah Bingei Tanoto serves as a Trustee on the Board of the Tanoto Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the RGE group. Founded in 1981 by her parents, the Foundation has supported the National University of Singapore (NUS) with gifts to scholarships, professorships and research.

Editor’s Note: This article, contributed by Jaron Koh Jun Jie, a MBBS Phase II student at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, first appeared in the Feb 2017 edition of MediCine Newsletter. Jaron Koh is a Tanoto Foundation Scholar who participated in Project Sukacita V, using his medical knowledge to conduct health screening & lessons for the local community.

With 27 oil palm estates in Riau, Jambi and North Sumatra totaling 160,000 hectares of land of which 60,000 are smallholder estates, Asian Agri together with its smallholder farmers represent one of Indonesia’s leading palm oil businesses. But along with vast plantations and fertile conditions inevitably come pests such as rats and caterpillars.

Doing broad biodiversity surveys in little-known areas is what many Fauna & Flora International (FFI) staff would love to do, but only a few get the opportunity. Finding, watching, photographing, identifying and reporting on the species in an area is fundamental to understanding how an ecosystem functions and what management steps are needed for its conservation.