Peat swamp forests in Indonesia consist of 50 percent of tropical peat swamps and 10 percent of dry land, an environmental expert connected with climate change mitigation said.
Indonesia’s peat swamp forests had the potential of playing an important role in mitigating global warming and climate change, said Karl Heinz Steinmann, an expert from the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) Pilot Project Team, said here Monday.
Scientifically, peat swamp forests in Indonesia store more carbon than natural forests, Steinmann explained at public dialogue on “Questioning REDD scheme in Indonesia,” held by WALHI (Indonesian Forum for Environment).
He said, the carbon stocks are very vulnerable to disturbances such as deforestation and degradation.
According to Steinmann, the deforestation and degradation of peat swamp forests could be in the form of illegal logging, forest conversion, droughts, forest fires and excessive exploitation.
He explained that a South Sumatra forest or a Merang peat swamp forest would be a promising location for a pilot project because it still has natural forest cover and stored carbon stocks and its biodiversity is quite large.
In addition, the region is a connecting corridor of protected areas and conservation areas such as Sembilang National Park in South Sumatra and Berbak National Park in Jambi.
The REDD pilot project site is one of the areas that has both high biodiversity and areas where illegal logging is rampant, Steinmann noted.
He said a survey of the University of Muhammadiyah Palembang in 2008 estimated that in 25 years (without MRPP projected) most of the natural forests will be depleted due to illegal logging.
The project covers an area of 24 thousand hectares and is designed to tackle the main cause of deforestation in Indonesia, namely illegal logging. The project will also prevent the encroachment of forest for agriculture.
With these efforts, it is expected that the project will be beneficial to biodiversity and improve (conditions for) surrounding villages, Steinmann added.
He explained that various parties have continued to attempt to fix the matter of illegal logging, but have been unable to eliminate it.
In forest areas, including in South Sumatra, illegal logging cases still occurred, he added.
The public dialogue event was also attended by Teguh Surya, an international campaigner for WALHI, as well as students of public and private universities in Palembang city.
Teguh Surya said the scheme of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), intended to address global environmental problems, has to be scrutinized (by all parties) together so that it will not to be deviated from.
Therefore, the public dialogue was to examine critically and comprehensively if the REDD scheme could be the right solution, as well as to determine who benefited from the REDD scheme, he said.
He noted, the purpose of the dialogue was to parse the agenda for the implementation of REDD in Indonesia and develop a common view of the management and forest restoration patterns in this country.
