Asia Pacific
-
Lera Miles of UN Environment: ‘There’s much more peatland there than anyone had ever anticipated’
Will the recent discovery of peat in the Congo Basin be a boon or a liability for global climate change…
6 min read -
‘Black gold’ for climate mitigation
New tools and new discoveries are drastically altering our existing knowledge of peatlands. Scientists have recently discovered the existence of…
6 min read -
Guardians of the forest
The sky turned yellow just before the 2015 peatland fires reached their height in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Then it turned dark,…
9 min read -
Tim Christophersen of UN Environment: ‘Peatlands are one of the least-understood ecosystems.’
With 425 people in attendance in Jakarta — as well as over one thousand views of the event livestream and…
6 min read -
Event highlights: Global Landscapes Forum – Peatlands Matter
It may seem counter-intuitive to put human interests first when tackling an environmental issue as complex and technical as peatlands.…
6 min read -
Living in a toxic haze
Peatland fires in Indonesia push scale-topping figures. Kalimantan alone produced greater levels of carbon emissions than the entire European Union…
6 min read -
People and peat
Deep in the forests of Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, the murmur of a paddle sliding through water joins the mesh of…
5 min read -
Wet and Wild: Indonesian Forest Fires
When fires tore through peatlands in Sumatra, Indonesia, in June 2013, the immediate effects were devastatingly familiar. In just one…
5 min read -
Peatland fire policy: From past to present
Almost two decades after the devastating Indonesian wildfires of 1997-1998 drew international attention and prompted a wave of management attempts,…
5 min read -
Local law and order
On the outskirts of Dompas village in Riau province, a group of men is peeling back the black earth with…
5 min read -
Rewetting Indonesia’s peatlands
Experts from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) have been working with the local community in Dompas village, Riau…
1 min read -
Fending off the flames
The land fires that swept through Indonesia in 2015 burned some 2.6 million hectares, with the resulting haze causing health…
5 min read -
Getting down and dirty in degraded lands
Tropical peatlands are massive carbon sinks. But what happens when they are depleted of the water that sustains them, or…
5 min read -
Peat beneath their feet
What do a hairy-nosed otter, a Sumatran tiger and a white-backed Malayan Tapir have in common? Not only are they…
5 min read -
In complex palm industry, “certified sustainable” falls short
As global demand for palm oil has grown in recent years, so has consumer concern over deforestation caused by expanding…
8 min read