'Shocking' wetlands destruction in Indonesia fuels climate change
Pastor Dale Morgan
'Shocking' wetlands destruction in Indonesia fuels climate change*
NAIROBI, Nov 6 (AFP) Nov 06, 2006
"Shocking" destruction of wetlands in Indonesia is fuelling global
warming with the emission of huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the
earth's atmosphere, an environmental group said here Monday.
Wetlands International, a Netherlands-based NGO, said massive amounts of
peat bogs have been drained, logged and burned in the southeast Asian
nation, producing large quantities of carbon dioxide.
"New research shows the enormous impact of peatland degradation on
climate change," it said in a statement released to coincide with the
opening of a UN climate change summit in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Such activity in Indonesia, largely caused by growing global demand for
hardwood, paper pulp and palm oil, is emitting some two billion tonnes
of carbon dioxide into the air each year, the group said.
"These amounts change the global picture concerning carbon emissions,"
it said.
Layers of peat, normally wet, dry and begin decomposing and emitting
carbon dioxide when swampy areas are drained for commericial agriculture
use. The process is rapid in the tropics and is often accelerated by fires.
In Indonesia, these fires have caused massive amounts of acrid and
polluting smoke to disrupt air travel, create health problems and cause
regional anger as the haze has billowed across neighbors Singapore and
parts of Malaysia.
The group said if peat emissions were taken into account, along with
industrial emissions, they would bring Indonesia from the 21st-largest
carbon dioxide producer in the world to the third, ahead of India,
Russia and fully developed economies like Britain and Germany.
Peatland emissions are not now calculated under the Kyoto Protocol that
seeks to limit the amount of greenhouse gases countries produce and so
there is little incentive to reduce them, the group said.
The statement was issued ahead of a Tuesday presentation of a report on
the matter to the UN conference by Wetlands International and its
partner Delft Hydraulics, it said.