Basten Gokkon, Jakarta – Most of Indonesia's carbon-rich peatlands aren't protected, according to a new study that calls for prioritizing much-needed restoration efforts for these areas.
The recently published paper shows that less than 16% of Indonesia's 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of peatlands are protected by law. The researchers, from universities in Italy, Malaysia and Australia, also found that the area of peatland in need of restoration interventions amounted to 4.2 million hectares (10.4 million acres), representing 28.7% of the total study area. This is much higher than the Indonesian government's target of restoring 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) of peatland by 2024.
Lead author Dilva Terzano, a climate finance specialist at the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), said she was inspired to conduct the research after having worked in Indonesia on peatland sustainable management and restoration for years, through a partnership with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF).
"And what was evident was the discrepancy between the conservation areas delineation in the country, and the recent exercise undertaken by MOEF of mapping the peatlands in the whole country," Terzano told Mongabay in an email.
The study identified the largest unprotected peatland area in Indonesia as being in the Papua region (2.5 million hectares, or 6.2 million acres), followed by Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, at 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres), and Sumatra (1.9 million hectares, or 4.7 million acres). The analysis found that the biggest area of peatland in need of restoration efforts was in Sumatra (2 million hectares, or 4.9 million acres), followed by Kalimantan (1.4 million hectares, or 3.5 million acres) and Papua (0.8 million hectares, or 2 million acres).
"Our results show clearly that targets proposed by the BRG strategy seem not to be enough to face land degradation processes taking place in Indonesian peatlands, implying that more ambitious targets should be set by BRG," the study says, referring to the country's Peatland Restoration Agency, which was created by President Joko Widodo in 2016 to carry out the measures.
Terzano noted that the 2.6 million hectare target came about when BRG was first established and was planned for 2016-2020. The agency was created in response to the historical peatland burning that occurred in 2015. The agency's mandate has since been extended, in part because it failed to meet its target by 2020 – testimony to the challenges in restoring peatlands at such a large scale, Terzano said.
"It would be interesting to know what is today's status of reaching that target, and whether that target can be moved upwards as suggested in our study," she said.
Peatland ecosystems are a key terrestrial carbon sink and provide other special ecological services that benefit both local and global communities. About 11% of global peatland areas are in the tropics, with an estimated 54% of those in Indonesia, particularly in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. Tropical peatlands are also the most biodiverse peatland environments in the world, but are among the most threatened due to logging and clearing for agriculture. The latter is associated excessive drainage of the moist peat soil, which increases the risk of wildfires, and land clearing using fire.
Indonesian regulations issued in the wake of the 2015 fires prohibit all logging and canal construction in peatland areas, and establish a limit on draining of peatland areas. They also make it illegal to burn peatlands prior to development, and require regular monitoring of water levels and peatland status, as well as reporting to local and central government authorities.
As a signatory to the 2015 Paris Agreement, Indonesia has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 29% below the business-as-usual scenario by 2030 (or by 41% with international support). With forest degradation and land-use changes accounting for the bulk of the country's emissions, its updated commitment clearly identifies peatland restoration and conservation as key climate mitigation strategies.
Terzano's team suggests in their study that the government conduct a systematic and standardized prioritization of management of peatland restoration to achieve those targets. Their research calls for three types of interventions for the peatlands in Kalimantan, Papua and Sumatra: restore, conserve, and sustainable agriculture.
The peatlands of Kalimantan have the highest percentage of what they call conserve areas, aligning with the proportion of peatland there that's already protected: 19.5%. Papua and Sumatra have lower proportions of protected peatland – 13.9% and 13.1% respectively – meaning other interventions would be more effective there. The researchers' analysis suggests that the largest areas of peatlands that should be transitioned to sustainable agriculture are in Sumatra and Kalimantan. That's because these two regions have the largest areas of oil palm plantations and tree crops in the country and have experienced the most agricultural conversion of their peatlands in recent decades.
"BRG and MOEF both have peatland restoration and sustainable management/conservation targets that they work towards," Terzano said. "Both have acknowledged the importance of restoration as one of the most cost effective interventions on peatland ecosystems, as well as are aware of the vast peatlands areas in the country requiring attention. Both institutions are working towards that common goal."
Citation
Terzano, D., Trezza, F. R., Rezende, M., Malatesta, L., Lew Siew Yan, S., Parish, F., ... Attorre, F. (2023). Prioritization of peatland restoration and conservation interventions in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. Journal for Nature Conservation, 73, 126388. doi:10.1016/j.jnc.2023.126388
[Basten Gokkon is a senior staff writer for Indonesia at Mongabay. Find him on Twitter @bgokkon.]