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From 1/12/2007 issue of New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626321.600-the-bog-barons-indonesias-carbon-catastrophe.html; see also Editorial in same issue; subscription/purchase required for both full articles.
The bog barons: Indonesia's carbon catastrophe
Fred Pearce
Key quotes:
"I AM standing in the heart of the world's second largest tropical peat swamp, the Kampar bog in central Sumatra, watching the swamp's water drain away along a small canal. Across the western side of the bog there are dozens more drains. The peat bog is bleeding to death before me.";
"As water levels fall beneath the blackened and treeless wasteland, the peat is drying and decomposing, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per square kilometre than do many cities.
"I watched as workers planted acacia trees for paper and palm oil trees destined to make biofuels to help reduce Europe's CO2 emissions. Yet draining the peat will release 30 times more CO2 than will be saved by replacing fossil fuels with biofuels";
"Peat holds many times more carbon than the forest above it. Marcel Silvius, a tropical ecologist at Wetlands International, estimates that in south-east Asia, 130,000 square kilometres of peatland forests have already been cut down and partially drained. As a result, an average of 2 gigatonnes of CO2 is being released each year through burning and decomposition. That's equal to 8 per cent of the total annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels - and 90 per cent of it comes from Indonesia alone.";
"Where water is drained to a depth of a metre, typical for many palm oil plantations, about 10 centimetres of peat disappears every year. This emits between 130 and 180 tonnes of CO2 per hectare each year. So, including the one-off releases from deforestation, each hectare of peatland drained for palm oil will emit between 3750 and 5400 tonnes over the next 25 years, according to Jack Rieley, a tropical peatlands specialist at the University of Nottingham, UK. Even if the palm oil is used as biofuel, a hectare's output will save only 150 tonnes in vehicle emissions over the period, meaning 25 to 36 times as much carbon will be emitted as is saved.
"Yet when I went to see Ang Boon Beng, head of a research station run by palm oil company Asian Agri, he suggested that the peatland plantations absorb carbon. This ignorance extends to the authorities. At the plantation department in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, they told me that peat less than 3 metres thick does not emit CO2 when drained."
The article also discusses how acacia plantations and demand for timber are major drivers of peatland destruction, and how Indonesian officials and companies are seeking carbon credits for stemming emissions from deforestation and peatland drainage.
Get closer to the jungle… I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626321.600-the-bog-barons-indonesias-carbon-catastrophe.html; see also Editorial in same issue; subscription/purchase required for both full articles.
The bog barons: Indonesia's carbon catastrophe
Fred Pearce
Key quotes:
"I AM standing in the heart of the world's second largest tropical peat swamp, the Kampar bog in central Sumatra, watching the swamp's water drain away along a small canal. Across the western side of the bog there are dozens more drains. The peat bog is bleeding to death before me.";
"As water levels fall beneath the blackened and treeless wasteland, the peat is drying and decomposing, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per square kilometre than do many cities.
"I watched as workers planted acacia trees for paper and palm oil trees destined to make biofuels to help reduce Europe's CO2 emissions. Yet draining the peat will release 30 times more CO2 than will be saved by replacing fossil fuels with biofuels";
"Peat holds many times more carbon than the forest above it. Marcel Silvius, a tropical ecologist at Wetlands International, estimates that in south-east Asia, 130,000 square kilometres of peatland forests have already been cut down and partially drained. As a result, an average of 2 gigatonnes of CO2 is being released each year through burning and decomposition. That's equal to 8 per cent of the total annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels - and 90 per cent of it comes from Indonesia alone.";
"Where water is drained to a depth of a metre, typical for many palm oil plantations, about 10 centimetres of peat disappears every year. This emits between 130 and 180 tonnes of CO2 per hectare each year. So, including the one-off releases from deforestation, each hectare of peatland drained for palm oil will emit between 3750 and 5400 tonnes over the next 25 years, according to Jack Rieley, a tropical peatlands specialist at the University of Nottingham, UK. Even if the palm oil is used as biofuel, a hectare's output will save only 150 tonnes in vehicle emissions over the period, meaning 25 to 36 times as much carbon will be emitted as is saved.
"Yet when I went to see Ang Boon Beng, head of a research station run by palm oil company Asian Agri, he suggested that the peatland plantations absorb carbon. This ignorance extends to the authorities. At the plantation department in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, they told me that peat less than 3 metres thick does not emit CO2 when drained."
The article also discusses how acacia plantations and demand for timber are major drivers of peatland destruction, and how Indonesian officials and companies are seeking carbon credits for stemming emissions from deforestation and peatland drainage.
Get closer to the jungle… I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!
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