Third-world forest mismanagement adds significantly to greenhouse gases

Nov 23 02:40 UTC 1997

(Reproduced from "New Scientist" magazine, 10/18/97, without permission.)
 
        Indonesia's inferno will make us all sweat
 
Peat bogs in Indonesia that have been set alight by the country's
raging forest fires could release more carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere than all the power stations and car engines of Western
Europe emit in a year.  The finding backs up claims that the fires
could have a significant impact on global warming.
 
Jack Rieley, a peat bog specialist at the University of Nottingham,
and colleagues in Britain, France and the US, have concluded that a
fifth of the estimated 600 billion tonnes of carbon stored in the
world's peat bogs is in Indonesia.  Rieley has now calculated that if
these forested peat bogs continue to burn for six months, which is
likely despite the onset of rains, they will release 1 billion tonnes
of carbon.  Western Europe's emissions are below 900 million tonnes a
year.
 
Estimates from satellite images suggest that the fires on the islands
of Borneo and Sumatra have affected about one million hectares of peat
bogs.  "If the fires establish themselves within the surface peat
itself, they could lead to the loss of up to a metre of peat within
six months," says Rieley.
 
The Centre for International Forest Research, based at Bogor in
Indonesia, backs Rieley's analysis.  "Burning peat has far more severe
environmental impacts than simply burning the annual accumulation of
plant material," it says.  Richard Lindsay of the University of East
London, secretary of the International Mire Conservation Group warns:
"If the fire gets deep into the peat, it could smoulder for several
years."
 
This is not the first time that fires in Indonesia's peat bogs have
added to the atmospheric burden of CO2.  Half a million hectares burnt
for nine months between July 1982 and April 1983.  The fires coincided
with a surge in atmospheric CO2, even though emissions from
fossil-fuel burning were then at a six-year low.
 
                                                Fred Pearce

response 4 of 7:

Nov 29 20:56 UTC 1997

Hi, it is not third-world forest mismanagement,
    it is Indonesian forest mismanagement.

response 6 of 7:

Nov 30 06:31 UTC 1997

definitely!  especially if you consider that many of the fires are started
as a means of clearing land for development.  many of them by private farmers
rather than government efforts, but the govm't should enforce the
restrictions...