Blog Posts: peat

Southeast Asia is home to over 54% of the world’s peatlands — tropical wetlands that have a major role to play in climate action. However, around 25 million hectares of tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia have been deforested and drained over the last three decades alone, and only 6% of peatlands remain untouched. One of the main strategies to monitor and maintain peatlands is mapping. This helps ensure experts know where peatlands are and can accurately monitor changes in peatland conditions to help avoid degradation and effectively plan any necessary restoration. In Southeast Asia, not all countries have developed peat maps to support peatland management. New and advanced satellite-based peat mapping methods can help.

Wet peat is an excellent carbon sink that can help reducing heat and mitigating the climate crisis. On the other hand, dry peat will continually release carbon into the air even without fire. If there is a fire, the amount of carbon release can significantly increase.

Sometimes, misconception about paludiculture occurs because the scientific definition and principles are not commonly discussed.

In this third installment of the Peatland Governance Series, we explain how restoring and preserving native plants in a peat ecosystem can improve the welfare of people surrounding it, especially women.

Does the rule of law disallow the government to make any changes in the law that have adverse effects on exiting permits or legal obligations/rights? Read more in the article.

New research from WRI and others shows that stopping deforestation, restoring forests and improving forestry practices could cost-effectively remove 7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, or as much as eliminating 1.5 billion cars.

The first key step to achieve sustainable peatland governance is to get updated and accurate information about peat through peatland mapping. Learn various methods of peatland mapping in this article.

The Indonesian Supreme Court quashed the Ministerial Regulation (PermenLHK) No. 17/2017. What is the rationale of such decision?

The Government of Indonesia deserves high praise for its numerous commitments to protect and restore peatland over the past several years. At the start of this year, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) announced the Ministerial Regulation No. 40/2017 regarding government facilitation of Industrial Tree Concessions (HTI) within the framework of the management and protection of peat ecosystems.

Anda juga dapat membaca tulisan ini dalam bahasa Indonesia di sini.

Peat forests, or wetlands, are some of the most important ecosystems for Indonesia and climate change. The country holds the largest tropical peatland in the world, which acts as a major carbon sink. At the same time, carbon emissions from peat decomposition and peat fires account for 42 percent of Indonesia’s total emissions, and spikes in peat fires in 2015 pushed the country to move from world’s sixth-largest to the fourth-largest emitter.