Climate of Our Future

October 10, 2007
 GreenPeace

The threat to the world’s forests has never been more acute nor the risk of global warming so imminent. With about one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions being caused by forest destruction, we are highlighting how Indonesia is now at the heart of this problem.
Indonesian forests are being destroyed faster than any other major forested country, for logging and oil palm plantations.

This destruction has obvious, immediate consequences for the unique plants, animals and people who call the Indonesian forests home. These forests contain between 10 and 15 percent of all known species of plants, mammals and birds that make up the world’s treasure chest of biodiversity. Orangutans, elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, more than 1,500 species of birds and thousands of plant species are all part of the country’s natural legacy. But many of these unique forest-dwelling animals, including the orangutan and the Sumatran tiger, are on the brink of extinction.

While the loss of forests is bad enough, there’s a double blow for the environment from forest clearance in Indonesia. Beneath most of this forest are thick layers of peat that lock up millions of tones of carbon. Once the forest is cleared the peat swamp is drained and often also burned to make the soil more suitable for palm oil plantations. Burning of the forest and peat results in huge amounts of greenhouse gases making Indonesia the world’s third largest climate polluter.

Brazil is the fourth largest climate polluter, with up to 75 percent of its emissions coming from land conversion and deforestation mainly in the Amazon.

More emissions than transport

Globally deforestation and forest fires account for approximately 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more emissions than the world’s entire transport sector. If global deforestation is left unchecked it will continue to accelerate the rate of global warming.

This urgent global problem needs a global solution. We have launched a Forest Defenders Camp on the boundary of forest clearing in a region of Sumatra. In the coming weeks we’ll be highlighting scale of the destruction and who’s responsible. But also in Indonesia lies the start of that global solution.

Indonesia will be hosting the next round of international climate talks in December. Governments from around the world will gather in Bali to negotiate about extending the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement containing legally-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

We aim to ensure that deforestation is included in the next phase of the Kyoto agreement extending beyond 2012. The decisions that governments make in the near future are critical for securing the financing and capacity needed by countries to safeguard their tropical forests and to allow them to make a serious contribution to global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Stabilizing the world’s climate depends on countries agreeing to deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from the energy and industrial sectors and completely halting deforestation. And, above all, ensuring that this is firmly written into the revised Kyoto Protocol.

Forest Defenders Camp

The Forest Defenders Camp is part of our international effort to protect the world’s remaining forests and global climate prior to December’s negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol. The camp is located 150km to the south and east of Pekanbaru, on the border of the plantations operated by subsidiaries of the company PT Duta Palma Nusantara. The camp is based close to the boundary of forest destruction, where a palm oil plantation is clearing peatland forest.

Volunteers at the Forest Defenders Camp take part in spotting and fighting forest fires, conduct surveys of the depth of peat underlying the forest and undertake a comprehensive assessment of biodiversity in the area.

The main camp structure, the Balai Adat, is a traditional Sumatran community meeting house located on community land. The area surrounding the camp has recently been cleared of forest and peatlands have been destroyed to make way for oil palm plantations. (It will be ‘no frills’ living conditions for the volunteers).

Mr Ali Mursyid, the community leader of the village closest to the camp, said, “Our people consider the forests a sacred inheritance from our ancestors and we have an obligation to protect them because it is our source of life. We are trying to save our remaining forests at any cost and are committed to rehabilitating whatever others have destroyed.”

The activities and documentation work conducted over the coming months will draw attention to the urgency of ending deforestation, biodiversity loss and the problem of climate change.