Carbon emissions may cost RI dearly

Adianto P. Simamora , The Jakarta Post ,

JAKARTA | Fri, 03/06/2009 9:37 AM | National

Peatlands for palm oil: Peatland is drained to make way for the cultivation of oil palms in Central Kalimantan. Indonesia is home to the world’s largest peatland areas. Scientists have warned that peatland reclamation could increase the release of carbon emissions stored in its area, leading to the worsening of global warming. (Courtesy Of The Indonesian Peat Land Association)

Indonesia suffers an estimated US$1 billion in potential losses each year from the release of carbon stored in its tropical forests’ peatlands, a study has revealed.

Mitsuru Osaki, a professor at Hokkaido University’s Graduate School of Agriculture in Japan, said the potential losses were due to poor management combined with the massive opening of peatlands for agriculture, such as in Central Kalimantan.

“If we convert it to the price of carbon, Indonesia loses about $1 billion annually, equal with the release of 0.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide [CO2],” he said Thursday on the sidelines of an international conference on carbon management in peat forests in Central Kalimantan.

Asked about the peatland condition in Indonesia, Osaki, involved in a study on peatlands in Kalimantan from 1997 to 2007, said it was “terrible, with no management of peatlands.”

Osaki, together with a team of 16 Japanese scientists, will conduct another five-year study to calculate the total carbon in the country’s peatlands.

The study will be jointly conducted with Indonesian scientists from the State Ministry for Research and Technology, the National Standardization Agency (BSN), the University of Palangka Raya, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and the Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Lapan).

Tropical peatlands — including swamps and forests found in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Amazon lowlands and central Africa — are estimated to reach 42 million hectares and contain 148 gigatons of CO2.

Rising levels of CO2 emissions add to the greenhouse effect, thus increasing the temperature in the atmosphere, widely blamed for climate change effects.

Bambang Setiadi, chairman of the Indonesian Peatland Association, told the conference Indonesia had about 27 million hectares of peatlands, mostly in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua.

“Indonesia’s peatlands store between 10 and 32 gigatons of CO2,” he said.

(JP/Irma)

The depth of the country’s peatlands ranges from 1 to more than 12 meters. About 42 percent of the peatlands are more than 2 meters deep, with deposits of 77 percent of total peat carbon.
Bambang, who is also BSN chairman, said deforestation and repeated forest and peat fires significantly contributed to carbon release.

“Fires have become the most dangerous threat to Indonesian forests and peatlands in the past 15 years,” he said.

Studies show peat deposits in Southeast Asia could be wiped out by 2040 due to fires.

Bambang added that up to 0.6 gigatons of carbon released into the atmosphere in 2006 were due to peat fires.

He said carbon release from reclaimed peatlands could not be avoided. However, improved land management could lower the peat carbon loss rate.

LIPI peatland scientist Herwint Simbolon said the building of canals in peatlands would only accelerate the release of carbon.

“The fact is, carbon release is far higher than storage in peatlands, because the use of canals has sped up carbon release,” he said.

The government is currently drafting a presidential decree on peatland management, in a bid to cut CO2 emissions from peatlands.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono issued a ministerial decree last month to allow oil palm companies to expand into peatlands with a depth of less than 3 meters.

A report in 2006 from Wetlands International said Indonesia’s peatlands emitted around 2 billion tons of CO2 a year, far higher than the country’s emissions from energy, agriculture and waste, which together amounted to 451 million tons.

This places Indonesia as the world’s third largest CO2 emitter after the United States and China.

Indonesia: Palm Oil Production Prospects Continue to Grow

A significant change in the oil palm industry has taken place during the past season, as Indonesia surpassed Malaysia in production of palm oil and is now the world leader. This designation will continue and Indonesia’s production rate will outpace Malaysia for the foreseeable future. Personnel from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) conducted crop-assessment travel in the main palm oil production regions of Sumatra and West Kalimantan during August and September. The team met with palm oil estate managers, agricultural officials, researchers, and independent commodity analysts. The plantation visits were targeted in the country’s most important producing provinces. Regular surveys of fruit bunches three months prior to harvest were indicative of an output surge in fresh fruit bunches. Assuming normal rainfall and based on bunch counts there will be a surge in production during the last quarter of 2007 and into early 2008. In contrast, drier than normal conditions at the beginning of the year marginally reduced output for about three months. Oil production for all major producing areas is favorable despite some dryness in early 2007. Indonesia is forecast to produce 18.3 million metric tons of palm oil in 2007/08.

Read more

Experts urge govt to counter allegations of carbon flux

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 06/28/2007 10:21 AM

Experts recommended Wednesday that the country respond to the international community's allegations that Indonesia is the world's third largest carbon dioxide emitter due to the burning of peatland areas.

A recent calculation of emissions by the Netherlands-based Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics has placed Indonesia behind only the United States and China. Indonesia has jumped to third place from 21st position in 2005.

""I don't know how they came to this conclusion. We have to be suspicious because we are suspected now. We have never calculated our own carbon emissions before,"" Bambang Setiadi, deputy head of research, science and technology development at the Research and Technology Ministry, told a seminar.

At the seminar, attended by peatland experts from universities, government organizations and NGOs, it is expected that strategies to advise policymakers in Indonesia and Malaysia on the restoration, rehabilitation and sustainable utilization of peatlands will be devised.

Bambang said Indonesia needs to prepare solid grounds on which to counter the new statistics, especially at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Bali in December this year.

Contradicting Bambang's presentation, Herwin Simbolon, a forest ecologist from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said LIPI had been conducting research on peatland in Central Kalimantan for a decade, and calculated that the international count on the country's carbon flux was likely accurate.

""We may be debating methodology, but the most important thing is to look for the ways of solving the problem and not just prepare for defending ourselves in the international forum,"" he added.

Tropical peatland covers approximately 45 million hectares, 12 percent of global peatland. Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam contain nearly 70 percent of this resource. Indonesia, with 22 million ha, has around one half of all tropical peat.

Peatland in Southeast Asia is recognized as an important reservoir of biodiversity. It exhibits a range of important ecological and natural resource functions, including carbon storage.

Data from LIPI show that the carbon flux in Central Kalimantan has sharply increased since the conversion of one million ha of peatland into rice fields from 1995 to 1997, and especially with the construction of large canals throughout the area.

The project was part of former president Soeharto's plan to convert 1.4 million ha of peatland in the province into agricultural land. The project was later abandoned.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a decree on March 16 this year to expedite the rehabilitation of the converted peatland in Central Kalimantan. The project has been allocated around Rp 9 trillion (US$989 million) from the state budget.

Central Kalimantan Governor Agustin Teras Narang, who also spoke at the seminar, said the rehabilitation might not fully restore the self-regulatory mechanisms of water absorption on the peatland.

""This means that we have to close some canals that have caused the peatland to lose its natural function of absorbing water. This has caused floods in the rainy season and droughts in the dry season,"" Narang said. (02)