Towards sustainable management of Indonesian tropical peatlands

Abstract

Large areas of Indonesian peatlands have been converted for agricultural and plantation forest purposes. This requires draining with associated CO 2 emissions and fire risks. In order to identify alternative management regimes for peatlands, it is important to understand the sustainability of different peatland uses as well as the economic benefits peatlands supply under different land uses. This study explores the key sustainability issues in Indonesian peatlands, the ecosystem services supplied by peatlands, and potential responses to promote more sustainable peatland use. A literature review and spatial analysis were conducted. Based on predominantly government data, we estimate the amount of Indonesian peatlands that has been converted between 2000 and 2014. We quantify increases in oil palm and plantation forest crop production in this period, and we analyse key sustainability issues, i.e. peat fires and smoke-haze, soil subsidence and flood risk, CO 2 emissions, loss of habitat (in protected areas), and social conflicts that influence sustainability of Indonesian peatlands management. Among others we show that CO 2 emissions from peatlands in Indonesia can be estimated at between 350 and 400 million ton CO 2 per year, and that encroachment of oil palm and plantation forestry (acacia, rubber) has taken place on 28% of protected areas. However, as we examine, the uncertainties involved are substantial. Based on our findings, we distil several implications for the management of the peatlands.

Towards better use of Indonesian peatlands with paludiculture and low-drainage food crops

“…This study focused on peatlands in Central Kalimantan province which contains one of the largest peatland areas in Indonesia (2.6 million hectares, Ritung et al 2011) and where we have access to local data through various ongoing and completed projects (e.g. Uda et al 2017Uda et al , 2018. Approximately 47% of the total peatland area in Central Kalimantan (1.2 million ha) is still forested (including degraded and well-preserved forests) and the remainder is either converted to plantation (mostly oil palm) or degraded (Surahman et al 2018).…”

“…Oil palm, acacia and rubber plantations (industrial and smallholder plantations) have increasingly expanded to the peatland area (Gunarso et al 2013;Miettinen et al 2016;Schoneveld et al 2019). Between 2000 and 2014, palm oil production from peatlands alone has increased by almost threefold (Uda et al 2017). However, despite their economic benefits (in particular production for agricultural and forestry plantations), the conversion of natural peatlands has resulted in negative impacts on the environment and society.…”

Peatland Governance: The Problem of Depicting in Sustainability Governance, Regulatory Law, and Economic Instruments

“…Similarly, in the tropics, biofuel next to feedstuff is produced frequently at the expense of forests with intact peatlands, whereby national (in particular voluntary) regulations have so far been largely ineffective [127][128][129]. Furthermore, a regulatory gap regarding biofuel production has been identified at the international level [130].…”

“…The non-existent reporting obligations of the so-called Voluntary Emission Reductions (VER) have led to little information on the exact nature of this market [27,141]. Due to the lack of regulation, a vast amount of different quality standards have been developed, which are hard to keep track of [129]. Such standards have the purpose of ensuring the integrity of the projects and guaranteeing that the projects are actually implemented and achieve real GHG savings (Verified Carbon Standard, VCS 42 million t; Climate Action Reserve, 9 million t; Gold Standard, 8.5 million t; see [27]).…”

Bridging the gap between the available and required soil data for regional land use analysis

“…One representative soil profile for each mapping unit is included for the analysis. Uda et al, 2017 3. Climate Action Illustrating potential solutions for sustainable management of Indonesian tropical peatlands.…”