Sumber: IKON TV, the Netherlands,1 July 2007; 22:50
by Paul Rosenmoller
In Zuid-Oost Azië, met name in Maleisië en Indonesië, vindt een enorme CO2-ramp plaats. Grote veengebieden vallen hier ten prooi aan ontbossing. Het hout is zeer geliefd en op de lege velden worden oliepalmplantages gevestigd. Het gevolg van de ontbossing is dat het waterpeil in deze gebieden drastisch daalt. Daardoor komt de CO2, die van nature in het veen zit opgeslagen, vanzelf vrij. En dat gebeurt in zulke gigantische hoeveelheden, dat Indonesië hierdoor wereldwijd op de 3e plaats van CO2-uitstotende landen staat, terwijl het zónder de uitstoot uit de veengebieden op de 21e plaats zou staan. Acht procent van de wereldwijde CO2-uitstoot wordt veroorzaakt door ontginning van de veengebieden.
Paul Rosenmöller praat in een van de zwaar gehavende gebieden onder meer met natuurbeschermer Willy Smits. ‘Je ziet of ruikt het niet, maar we lopen nu in dichte CO2-dampen. Er vindt hier een natuurramp van ongekende omvang plaats’, vertelt Smits. De overheid is zich bewust van de ernst van de situatie en neemt maatregelen, die worden tegengewerkt door corruptie. Rijken uit de stad voorzien teams van arme arbeiders in de dorpen van kettingzagen. Die zien in de weliswaar illegale maar goed lonende houtkap een mogelijkheid om aan hun arme bestaan in het oerwoud te ontsnappen. Smits leidt Rosenmöller ook rond in een opvang voor orang-oetangs, die door het kappen van de bossen hun natuurlijke leefomgeving zijn kwijtgeraakt. De dieren komen zwaar ondervoed en ziek binnen. Smits: ‘Voor de oliepalmplantages worden de wouden met de grond gelijk gemaakt. Voor de orang-oetangs blijft er niets anders over dan op de kale vlakte rond te scharrelen en zich te voeden met de scheuten van de jonge plantjes.’
Rosenmöller bezoekt met Alue Dohong, onderzoeker van Wetlands International Indonesia het ‘Mega-rice’ project, in 1994 opgezet door de overheid om in grote gebieden op Kalimantan rijstvelden aan te leggen. ‘De veenbodem is daar absoluut niet geschikt voor. Je vernietigt het veen ermee. Maar de regering heeft niet bij de kwetsbaarheid van dit ecosysteem stilgestaan.’ legt Dohong uit, terwijl hij over de dorre velden uitkijkt waar niets meer op wil groeien. Ze gaan ook kijken bij een oliepalmplantage, die er op het eerste gezicht juist groen en gezond uitziet. Maar schijn bedriegt.
Met de Indonesische minister van milieu Witoelar praat Rosenmöller over de maatregelen die de Indonesische overheid neemt om de milieuramp een halt toe te roepen. Uit dat gesprek wordt duidelijk, dat het probleem de mogelijkheden en de verantwoordelijkheden van deze regering overstijgt. ‘Zonder hulp van de internationale gemeenschap kunnen we het tij niet keren’, aldus Witoelar.
Interviews en presentatie: Paul Rosenmöller; research: Lotje Dercksen, Marjolein Schut, Renate Megens; productie: Marie-Louise van Agtmael, Pauline Veltman; camera: Peter van der Linden, Tijn van Neerven; geluid: Geert Poelgeest; montage: Floor Rodenburg; samenstelling en regie: Hans Hermans en Martin Maat; eindredactie: Christof van Basten Batenburg.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Smoke shrouds green scheme
Jakarta correspondent Stephen Fitzpatrick | November 24, 2007
Sumber: Article from:The Australian
PICTURE this: a government so arrogant, so hubris-bloated that it is prepared to wipe out a million hectares of virgin rainforest to plant rice, despite warnings from scientists that, apart from the grave ecological damage, less than 30 per cent of the area is even suitable for growing the staple crop.
Such a monumental act of stupidity and greed indeed happened in southern Central Kalimantan. The project was the brainchild of pride-filled dictator Suharto, desperate in the mid-1990s to reverse Indonesia's rice deficit that required imports and ready to go to any lengths suggested by cronies and rapacious family members to do it.
Not a single crop was reaped from what was known as the mega-rice project: at least none that would suffice for an evening meal. Plenty of valuable timber ended up as pure profit in the pockets of Jakarta's super-wealthy, however, as the rainforests that once soaked up carbon dioxide were stripped of their bounty, mostly for overseas sale.
Now supporters of the post-Suharto reformasi administration, including Australia, are scrambling to allocate money to redress the fiasco and get some climate-change runs on the board, but grave questions remain over how much of the damage can be undone.
By digging more than 4600km of channels connecting two large rivers that flowed into the Java Sea to the south of Central Kalimantan province and draining the peat-rich rainforest swamp on which the region's delicate ecosystem relied, Suharto's engineers created a catastrophe that scientists say could take several generations to reverse.
"At least 50 years in the least affected areas and hundreds of years in most of it," explains agronomist Suwido Limin. "The hydrographic situation here was changed completely and the peat became extremely sensitive to fire."
The project's aims, in a misguided attempt to produce a wet-rice cultivation system on cleared peatland, ignored the fact the rivers are lower than the rainforest water table, which rises and falls according to the monsoonal cycle. For wet irrigation, the water source needs to be at least as high as the paddy fields. The new canal system, although designed as an irrigation network for the entire area that could flood paddy fields during crop growth and drain them at harvest time, flows only in one direction: out to sea.
It is impossible to re-flood the areas intended to host the rice crops at planting time. The peat - dense layers of partly decomposed vegetation, several metres deep - dried out and left the area useless for agriculture. Further, the project's other main intended effect - easing land shortage in Java, Madura and Sulawesi by offering agricultural space to thousands of people from those islands - failed completely, along with the harvest. The new arrivals then put greater pressure on existing food and other resources.
The only effective way to re-establish the peat, where that is possible at all, is to replant the land with appropriate rainforest species and to dam the canal network to isolate the forests once more from tidal fluctuation.
That's a project being championed by Suwido, Indonesia's foremost expert on peatland biodiversity who runs an international centre for peatland preservation at the University of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan's capital city.
It's significant that Suwido is a Dayak, the region's dominant ethnic group, which has historically had deep links to the land.
Indonesia's 90 million hectares of forests, which because of their ability to absorb CO2 play such a crucial role in the fight against global warming, are owned by the Government. It awards concessions to logging companies and plantation corporations, in particular those seeking to enter the lucrative palm oil market. Groups such as the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, are legally recognised as having stewardship over their traditional lands, which they typically harvest in sustainable fashion for a range of crops including coffee, rubber, rattan and various timbers. Now in many areas they are fighting back against the forest-clearing that, although it has been going on for decades, took off with the launch of Suharto's scheme in 1995 and has more recently hit warp speed with the palm oil boom, part of the race to produce viable biofuels.
These fuels are supposed to reduce dependence on fossil equivalents and thus tackle global warming head-on; but, ironically, the consensus is that Indonesia's ravaged peatlands and their consequent wildfires have made it the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the US and China.
A UN report this year suggested that, at present rates, 98 per cent of the country's rainforest will be destroyed within 15 years. The possible extinction of fauna such as orang-utans and tigers is part of the price likely to be paid for global warming.
Alarmed at the prospect, some prominent Kalimantan figures, such as Dayak leader Stone Christopel Sahabu from Cempaga village, several hours north of Palangkaraya, have organised community resistance camps deep in what remains of their forests, armed with traditional weapons and prepared to repel bulldozers and oil palm plantation bosses.
"We'll do this until the end, until we get proper title to the land. Guarding the forests was our responsibility from the beginning," Stone warns from his comfortable village home, where he is helping his wife recover from an infected foot injury and his grandson from a bout of malaria.
"The forest is just as much my home as this is." An official government document gives the lithe and strong 74-year-old authority to take care of - but not ownership of - the nearby 10,000ha he has helped preside through for decades.
It took just one week last year for excavators to turn 6000ha of that land into a oil palm plantation, he says. Now he's trying to work out how to fight the invasion in the courts.
Activists such as Suwido and Stone could prove to be powerful allies for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has hitched his car to the environmental train, the next station being the UN climate change conference in Bali starting on December 3.
At that meeting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will begin to take shape. Indonesia, with vast natural resources but also expansive power needs, wants to be in for the ride. Australia does too, even though the crucial matter of developing nations signing up to binding targets is likely to derail significant progress, at least in the short term.
In March, Yudhoyono decreed that Central Kalimantan's devastated peatlands be "rehabilitated and revitalised".
The wreckage of the mega-rice project - halted by Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie in 1998 - had contributed several times already to the terrible forest fires that covered Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia in thick smoke during subsequent dry seasons and almost caused diplomatic breakdowns between Jakarta and its northern neighbours.
The fires still burn during the midyear dry. They are especially rapacious because the metres-deep biomass becomes easily combustible once it dries out and the blazes are all but impossible to extinguish.
Only in the wet season, when heavy downpours can continue for hours on end, are fires really smothered. During the worst dry spells, the rich humus smoulders for months, reigniting spontaneously in the fierce heat and producing a pall thick enough to shut down airports and reduce visibility to a few metres.
Yudhoyono knows that tackling his country's rampant deforestation problem is the only way to gain international credibility on the environment, but he also has picked a contentious way of going about it, by joining the so-called Forest Eight group of nations - Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea - which want money for agreeing not to cut down certain parts of their rainforests. The concept is called avoided deforestation and it's based on the idea that these developing countries suffer a greater economic loss by keeping forest areas than by mining their wealth and turning the land over to plantations, mines and other industry.
Part of the deal will be a post-Kyoto agreement that brings rainforest-based greenhouse gas emission net cuts into the international carbon-trading regime.
And all of that is precisely where Yudhoyono's project to regenerate the dead peatlands of Central Kalimantan - and Australia's enthusiastic embrace of the plan - comes in.
Scientists believe peat in its natural state - centuries-old, partly decomposed organic matter deep in swampy forests - absorbs carbon dioxide, like trees. When the peat dries and burns, the dense smoke is accompanied by vast amounts of the stored carbon. Tackling that problem - or appearing to be doing so - adds clout on the climate change circuit.
Indonesian scientist Alue Dohong, of Wetlands International, stresses that peatland rehabilitation is not just an Indonesian problem "but a global one because even without the fires these dried-out peatlands are releasing 50 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year into the atmosphere".
The Australian Government's $30 million contribution to a projected $100 million government-industry Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, to which BHP Billiton has signed up, aims to reforest, reflood and preserve peatland on the Indonesian part of huge Borneo island. Exactly how is not clear: even government officials admit the scheme's detail is still being ironed out and applications closed last week for a Jakarta-based project administrator, who will take up the post in February. However, if the project follows any of the methods of previous Indonesian government rehabilitation efforts, Suwido says, it will almost certainly be a complete waste of money, apart from the image boost for firms such as BHP Billiton, a huge miner in Kalimantan and across the region, as a result of their role in an ostensibly green scheme.
"I don't want a developed nation like Australia to spend all that money for nothing," the scientist explains, gesturing at maps in his office showing the destroyed region. "But if it's anything like what's happened in the past, then I'm really not certain all the money won't just go straight into officials' pockets." Suwido's main criticism is of projects that aim to plant a given number of trees but include no mechanism for measuring their survival rate.
"The Government plants trees, the people look at them and say, 'That's nice', and the trees die," he says, almost furious in his dismay at the lack of accountability still evident in Indonesia. "Then they measure the success of their project by how many trees they have handed out. But how many of those trees have done anything? They say, 'We've replanted so many hectares', but there might in the end be only one tree still living on each of those hectares."
The approach also takes no account of the porous system of oversight on logging and plantation concessions in Indonesia, notoriously rife with corruption and ripe for abuse. Even the country's dwindling national parks are not safe from the greased palms of officials eager for a little extra.
Ever the campaigner, Suwido and his small university centre's staff of 10 have been running a pilot project where villagers in degraded mega-rice districts near Palangkaraya are given a variety of selected trees - a native species of melaleuca, say, which produces a fast-growing timber suitable for building houses - then paid a small amount of money each quarter for every one that remains alive. If the tree dies, they get nothing.
Monitoring the results is labour intensive but economically far more efficient than the Government's schemes as they exist, Suwido argues. "The people feel like they are actually responsible for the trees, which is how they treated the forests before they were wiped out. But the Government (says it's) not interested, because (it's) already rehabilitated two million hectares. Well, show me how many trees are on those two million hectares."
Suryadi, a woman from the small village of Kalampangan where the pilot project is focused, says it is working better than she expected, enabling her to "plant vegetables, especially green beans, although it's not so good when it floods" (a result of the canal drainage system).
Suwido staff member Sahara Alim, one of the workers who helps monitor the several-hectare trial plots cared for by villagers such as Suryadi, is as vehement as his boss in support of the idea, taking Inquirer into the field to demonstrate the project at work.
"Look, mega-rice was never really about rice anyway," he says. "It was about looting the timber. And, frankly, palm oil is not much better. But this way people at least get to feel they have their land back. The local government does site surveys and rehabilitation projects in areas where they know there will be no scrutiny. They don't plant anything, they don't do anything.
"The people are sick of this fake rehabilitation, sick of being lied to."
Sumber: Article from:The Australian
PICTURE this: a government so arrogant, so hubris-bloated that it is prepared to wipe out a million hectares of virgin rainforest to plant rice, despite warnings from scientists that, apart from the grave ecological damage, less than 30 per cent of the area is even suitable for growing the staple crop.
Such a monumental act of stupidity and greed indeed happened in southern Central Kalimantan. The project was the brainchild of pride-filled dictator Suharto, desperate in the mid-1990s to reverse Indonesia's rice deficit that required imports and ready to go to any lengths suggested by cronies and rapacious family members to do it.
Not a single crop was reaped from what was known as the mega-rice project: at least none that would suffice for an evening meal. Plenty of valuable timber ended up as pure profit in the pockets of Jakarta's super-wealthy, however, as the rainforests that once soaked up carbon dioxide were stripped of their bounty, mostly for overseas sale.
Now supporters of the post-Suharto reformasi administration, including Australia, are scrambling to allocate money to redress the fiasco and get some climate-change runs on the board, but grave questions remain over how much of the damage can be undone.
By digging more than 4600km of channels connecting two large rivers that flowed into the Java Sea to the south of Central Kalimantan province and draining the peat-rich rainforest swamp on which the region's delicate ecosystem relied, Suharto's engineers created a catastrophe that scientists say could take several generations to reverse.
"At least 50 years in the least affected areas and hundreds of years in most of it," explains agronomist Suwido Limin. "The hydrographic situation here was changed completely and the peat became extremely sensitive to fire."
The project's aims, in a misguided attempt to produce a wet-rice cultivation system on cleared peatland, ignored the fact the rivers are lower than the rainforest water table, which rises and falls according to the monsoonal cycle. For wet irrigation, the water source needs to be at least as high as the paddy fields. The new canal system, although designed as an irrigation network for the entire area that could flood paddy fields during crop growth and drain them at harvest time, flows only in one direction: out to sea.
It is impossible to re-flood the areas intended to host the rice crops at planting time. The peat - dense layers of partly decomposed vegetation, several metres deep - dried out and left the area useless for agriculture. Further, the project's other main intended effect - easing land shortage in Java, Madura and Sulawesi by offering agricultural space to thousands of people from those islands - failed completely, along with the harvest. The new arrivals then put greater pressure on existing food and other resources.
The only effective way to re-establish the peat, where that is possible at all, is to replant the land with appropriate rainforest species and to dam the canal network to isolate the forests once more from tidal fluctuation.
That's a project being championed by Suwido, Indonesia's foremost expert on peatland biodiversity who runs an international centre for peatland preservation at the University of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan's capital city.
It's significant that Suwido is a Dayak, the region's dominant ethnic group, which has historically had deep links to the land.
Indonesia's 90 million hectares of forests, which because of their ability to absorb CO2 play such a crucial role in the fight against global warming, are owned by the Government. It awards concessions to logging companies and plantation corporations, in particular those seeking to enter the lucrative palm oil market. Groups such as the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, are legally recognised as having stewardship over their traditional lands, which they typically harvest in sustainable fashion for a range of crops including coffee, rubber, rattan and various timbers. Now in many areas they are fighting back against the forest-clearing that, although it has been going on for decades, took off with the launch of Suharto's scheme in 1995 and has more recently hit warp speed with the palm oil boom, part of the race to produce viable biofuels.
These fuels are supposed to reduce dependence on fossil equivalents and thus tackle global warming head-on; but, ironically, the consensus is that Indonesia's ravaged peatlands and their consequent wildfires have made it the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the US and China.
A UN report this year suggested that, at present rates, 98 per cent of the country's rainforest will be destroyed within 15 years. The possible extinction of fauna such as orang-utans and tigers is part of the price likely to be paid for global warming.
Alarmed at the prospect, some prominent Kalimantan figures, such as Dayak leader Stone Christopel Sahabu from Cempaga village, several hours north of Palangkaraya, have organised community resistance camps deep in what remains of their forests, armed with traditional weapons and prepared to repel bulldozers and oil palm plantation bosses.
"We'll do this until the end, until we get proper title to the land. Guarding the forests was our responsibility from the beginning," Stone warns from his comfortable village home, where he is helping his wife recover from an infected foot injury and his grandson from a bout of malaria.
"The forest is just as much my home as this is." An official government document gives the lithe and strong 74-year-old authority to take care of - but not ownership of - the nearby 10,000ha he has helped preside through for decades.
It took just one week last year for excavators to turn 6000ha of that land into a oil palm plantation, he says. Now he's trying to work out how to fight the invasion in the courts.
Activists such as Suwido and Stone could prove to be powerful allies for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has hitched his car to the environmental train, the next station being the UN climate change conference in Bali starting on December 3.
At that meeting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will begin to take shape. Indonesia, with vast natural resources but also expansive power needs, wants to be in for the ride. Australia does too, even though the crucial matter of developing nations signing up to binding targets is likely to derail significant progress, at least in the short term.
In March, Yudhoyono decreed that Central Kalimantan's devastated peatlands be "rehabilitated and revitalised".
The wreckage of the mega-rice project - halted by Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie in 1998 - had contributed several times already to the terrible forest fires that covered Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia in thick smoke during subsequent dry seasons and almost caused diplomatic breakdowns between Jakarta and its northern neighbours.
The fires still burn during the midyear dry. They are especially rapacious because the metres-deep biomass becomes easily combustible once it dries out and the blazes are all but impossible to extinguish.
Only in the wet season, when heavy downpours can continue for hours on end, are fires really smothered. During the worst dry spells, the rich humus smoulders for months, reigniting spontaneously in the fierce heat and producing a pall thick enough to shut down airports and reduce visibility to a few metres.
Yudhoyono knows that tackling his country's rampant deforestation problem is the only way to gain international credibility on the environment, but he also has picked a contentious way of going about it, by joining the so-called Forest Eight group of nations - Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea - which want money for agreeing not to cut down certain parts of their rainforests. The concept is called avoided deforestation and it's based on the idea that these developing countries suffer a greater economic loss by keeping forest areas than by mining their wealth and turning the land over to plantations, mines and other industry.
Part of the deal will be a post-Kyoto agreement that brings rainforest-based greenhouse gas emission net cuts into the international carbon-trading regime.
And all of that is precisely where Yudhoyono's project to regenerate the dead peatlands of Central Kalimantan - and Australia's enthusiastic embrace of the plan - comes in.
Scientists believe peat in its natural state - centuries-old, partly decomposed organic matter deep in swampy forests - absorbs carbon dioxide, like trees. When the peat dries and burns, the dense smoke is accompanied by vast amounts of the stored carbon. Tackling that problem - or appearing to be doing so - adds clout on the climate change circuit.
Indonesian scientist Alue Dohong, of Wetlands International, stresses that peatland rehabilitation is not just an Indonesian problem "but a global one because even without the fires these dried-out peatlands are releasing 50 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year into the atmosphere".
The Australian Government's $30 million contribution to a projected $100 million government-industry Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, to which BHP Billiton has signed up, aims to reforest, reflood and preserve peatland on the Indonesian part of huge Borneo island. Exactly how is not clear: even government officials admit the scheme's detail is still being ironed out and applications closed last week for a Jakarta-based project administrator, who will take up the post in February. However, if the project follows any of the methods of previous Indonesian government rehabilitation efforts, Suwido says, it will almost certainly be a complete waste of money, apart from the image boost for firms such as BHP Billiton, a huge miner in Kalimantan and across the region, as a result of their role in an ostensibly green scheme.
"I don't want a developed nation like Australia to spend all that money for nothing," the scientist explains, gesturing at maps in his office showing the destroyed region. "But if it's anything like what's happened in the past, then I'm really not certain all the money won't just go straight into officials' pockets." Suwido's main criticism is of projects that aim to plant a given number of trees but include no mechanism for measuring their survival rate.
"The Government plants trees, the people look at them and say, 'That's nice', and the trees die," he says, almost furious in his dismay at the lack of accountability still evident in Indonesia. "Then they measure the success of their project by how many trees they have handed out. But how many of those trees have done anything? They say, 'We've replanted so many hectares', but there might in the end be only one tree still living on each of those hectares."
The approach also takes no account of the porous system of oversight on logging and plantation concessions in Indonesia, notoriously rife with corruption and ripe for abuse. Even the country's dwindling national parks are not safe from the greased palms of officials eager for a little extra.
Ever the campaigner, Suwido and his small university centre's staff of 10 have been running a pilot project where villagers in degraded mega-rice districts near Palangkaraya are given a variety of selected trees - a native species of melaleuca, say, which produces a fast-growing timber suitable for building houses - then paid a small amount of money each quarter for every one that remains alive. If the tree dies, they get nothing.
Monitoring the results is labour intensive but economically far more efficient than the Government's schemes as they exist, Suwido argues. "The people feel like they are actually responsible for the trees, which is how they treated the forests before they were wiped out. But the Government (says it's) not interested, because (it's) already rehabilitated two million hectares. Well, show me how many trees are on those two million hectares."
Suryadi, a woman from the small village of Kalampangan where the pilot project is focused, says it is working better than she expected, enabling her to "plant vegetables, especially green beans, although it's not so good when it floods" (a result of the canal drainage system).
Suwido staff member Sahara Alim, one of the workers who helps monitor the several-hectare trial plots cared for by villagers such as Suryadi, is as vehement as his boss in support of the idea, taking Inquirer into the field to demonstrate the project at work.
"Look, mega-rice was never really about rice anyway," he says. "It was about looting the timber. And, frankly, palm oil is not much better. But this way people at least get to feel they have their land back. The local government does site surveys and rehabilitation projects in areas where they know there will be no scrutiny. They don't plant anything, they don't do anything.
"The people are sick of this fake rehabilitation, sick of being lied to."
Smoke shrouds green scheme
Jakarta correspondent Stephen Fitzpatrick | November 24, 2007
Sumber: Article from:The Australian
PICTURE this: a government so arrogant, so hubris-bloated that it is prepared to wipe out a million hectares of virgin rainforest to plant rice, despite warnings from scientists that, apart from the grave ecological damage, less than 30 per cent of the area is even suitable for growing the staple crop.
Such a monumental act of stupidity and greed indeed happened in southern Central Kalimantan. The project was the brainchild of pride-filled dictator Suharto, desperate in the mid-1990s to reverse Indonesia's rice deficit that required imports and ready to go to any lengths suggested by cronies and rapacious family members to do it.
Not a single crop was reaped from what was known as the mega-rice project: at least none that would suffice for an evening meal. Plenty of valuable timber ended up as pure profit in the pockets of Jakarta's super-wealthy, however, as the rainforests that once soaked up carbon dioxide were stripped of their bounty, mostly for overseas sale.
Now supporters of the post-Suharto reformasi administration, including Australia, are scrambling to allocate money to redress the fiasco and get some climate-change runs on the board, but grave questions remain over how much of the damage can be undone.
By digging more than 4600km of channels connecting two large rivers that flowed into the Java Sea to the south of Central Kalimantan province and draining the peat-rich rainforest swamp on which the region's delicate ecosystem relied, Suharto's engineers created a catastrophe that scientists say could take several generations to reverse.
"At least 50 years in the least affected areas and hundreds of years in most of it," explains agronomist Suwido Limin. "The hydrographic situation here was changed completely and the peat became extremely sensitive to fire."
The project's aims, in a misguided attempt to produce a wet-rice cultivation system on cleared peatland, ignored the fact the rivers are lower than the rainforest water table, which rises and falls according to the monsoonal cycle. For wet irrigation, the water source needs to be at least as high as the paddy fields. The new canal system, although designed as an irrigation network for the entire area that could flood paddy fields during crop growth and drain them at harvest time, flows only in one direction: out to sea.
It is impossible to re-flood the areas intended to host the rice crops at planting time. The peat - dense layers of partly decomposed vegetation, several metres deep - dried out and left the area useless for agriculture. Further, the project's other main intended effect - easing land shortage in Java, Madura and Sulawesi by offering agricultural space to thousands of people from those islands - failed completely, along with the harvest. The new arrivals then put greater pressure on existing food and other resources.
The only effective way to re-establish the peat, where that is possible at all, is to replant the land with appropriate rainforest species and to dam the canal network to isolate the forests once more from tidal fluctuation.
That's a project being championed by Suwido, Indonesia's foremost expert on peatland biodiversity who runs an international centre for peatland preservation at the University of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan's capital city.
It's significant that Suwido is a Dayak, the region's dominant ethnic group, which has historically had deep links to the land.
Indonesia's 90 million hectares of forests, which because of their ability to absorb CO2 play such a crucial role in the fight against global warming, are owned by the Government. It awards concessions to logging companies and plantation corporations, in particular those seeking to enter the lucrative palm oil market. Groups such as the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, are legally recognised as having stewardship over their traditional lands, which they typically harvest in sustainable fashion for a range of crops including coffee, rubber, rattan and various timbers. Now in many areas they are fighting back against the forest-clearing that, although it has been going on for decades, took off with the launch of Suharto's scheme in 1995 and has more recently hit warp speed with the palm oil boom, part of the race to produce viable biofuels.
These fuels are supposed to reduce dependence on fossil equivalents and thus tackle global warming head-on; but, ironically, the consensus is that Indonesia's ravaged peatlands and their consequent wildfires have made it the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the US and China.
A UN report this year suggested that, at present rates, 98 per cent of the country's rainforest will be destroyed within 15 years. The possible extinction of fauna such as orang-utans and tigers is part of the price likely to be paid for global warming.
Alarmed at the prospect, some prominent Kalimantan figures, such as Dayak leader Stone Christopel Sahabu from Cempaga village, several hours north of Palangkaraya, have organised community resistance camps deep in what remains of their forests, armed with traditional weapons and prepared to repel bulldozers and oil palm plantation bosses.
"We'll do this until the end, until we get proper title to the land. Guarding the forests was our responsibility from the beginning," Stone warns from his comfortable village home, where he is helping his wife recover from an infected foot injury and his grandson from a bout of malaria.
"The forest is just as much my home as this is." An official government document gives the lithe and strong 74-year-old authority to take care of - but not ownership of - the nearby 10,000ha he has helped preside through for decades.
It took just one week last year for excavators to turn 6000ha of that land into a oil palm plantation, he says. Now he's trying to work out how to fight the invasion in the courts.
Activists such as Suwido and Stone could prove to be powerful allies for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has hitched his car to the environmental train, the next station being the UN climate change conference in Bali starting on December 3.
At that meeting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will begin to take shape. Indonesia, with vast natural resources but also expansive power needs, wants to be in for the ride. Australia does too, even though the crucial matter of developing nations signing up to binding targets is likely to derail significant progress, at least in the short term.
In March, Yudhoyono decreed that Central Kalimantan's devastated peatlands be "rehabilitated and revitalised".
The wreckage of the mega-rice project - halted by Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie in 1998 - had contributed several times already to the terrible forest fires that covered Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia in thick smoke during subsequent dry seasons and almost caused diplomatic breakdowns between Jakarta and its northern neighbours.
The fires still burn during the midyear dry. They are especially rapacious because the metres-deep biomass becomes easily combustible once it dries out and the blazes are all but impossible to extinguish.
Only in the wet season, when heavy downpours can continue for hours on end, are fires really smothered. During the worst dry spells, the rich humus smoulders for months, reigniting spontaneously in the fierce heat and producing a pall thick enough to shut down airports and reduce visibility to a few metres.
Yudhoyono knows that tackling his country's rampant deforestation problem is the only way to gain international credibility on the environment, but he also has picked a contentious way of going about it, by joining the so-called Forest Eight group of nations - Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea - which want money for agreeing not to cut down certain parts of their rainforests. The concept is called avoided deforestation and it's based on the idea that these developing countries suffer a greater economic loss by keeping forest areas than by mining their wealth and turning the land over to plantations, mines and other industry.
Part of the deal will be a post-Kyoto agreement that brings rainforest-based greenhouse gas emission net cuts into the international carbon-trading regime.
And all of that is precisely where Yudhoyono's project to regenerate the dead peatlands of Central Kalimantan - and Australia's enthusiastic embrace of the plan - comes in.
Scientists believe peat in its natural state - centuries-old, partly decomposed organic matter deep in swampy forests - absorbs carbon dioxide, like trees. When the peat dries and burns, the dense smoke is accompanied by vast amounts of the stored carbon. Tackling that problem - or appearing to be doing so - adds clout on the climate change circuit.
Indonesian scientist Alue Dohong, of Wetlands International, stresses that peatland rehabilitation is not just an Indonesian problem "but a global one because even without the fires these dried-out peatlands are releasing 50 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year into the atmosphere".
The Australian Government's $30 million contribution to a projected $100 million government-industry Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, to which BHP Billiton has signed up, aims to reforest, reflood and preserve peatland on the Indonesian part of huge Borneo island. Exactly how is not clear: even government officials admit the scheme's detail is still being ironed out and applications closed last week for a Jakarta-based project administrator, who will take up the post in February. However, if the project follows any of the methods of previous Indonesian government rehabilitation efforts, Suwido says, it will almost certainly be a complete waste of money, apart from the image boost for firms such as BHP Billiton, a huge miner in Kalimantan and across the region, as a result of their role in an ostensibly green scheme.
"I don't want a developed nation like Australia to spend all that money for nothing," the scientist explains, gesturing at maps in his office showing the destroyed region. "But if it's anything like what's happened in the past, then I'm really not certain all the money won't just go straight into officials' pockets." Suwido's main criticism is of projects that aim to plant a given number of trees but include no mechanism for measuring their survival rate.
"The Government plants trees, the people look at them and say, 'That's nice', and the trees die," he says, almost furious in his dismay at the lack of accountability still evident in Indonesia. "Then they measure the success of their project by how many trees they have handed out. But how many of those trees have done anything? They say, 'We've replanted so many hectares', but there might in the end be only one tree still living on each of those hectares."
The approach also takes no account of the porous system of oversight on logging and plantation concessions in Indonesia, notoriously rife with corruption and ripe for abuse. Even the country's dwindling national parks are not safe from the greased palms of officials eager for a little extra.
Ever the campaigner, Suwido and his small university centre's staff of 10 have been running a pilot project where villagers in degraded mega-rice districts near Palangkaraya are given a variety of selected trees - a native species of melaleuca, say, which produces a fast-growing timber suitable for building houses - then paid a small amount of money each quarter for every one that remains alive. If the tree dies, they get nothing.
Monitoring the results is labour intensive but economically far more efficient than the Government's schemes as they exist, Suwido argues. "The people feel like they are actually responsible for the trees, which is how they treated the forests before they were wiped out. But the Government (says it's) not interested, because (it's) already rehabilitated two million hectares. Well, show me how many trees are on those two million hectares."
Suryadi, a woman from the small village of Kalampangan where the pilot project is focused, says it is working better than she expected, enabling her to "plant vegetables, especially green beans, although it's not so good when it floods" (a result of the canal drainage system).
Suwido staff member Sahara Alim, one of the workers who helps monitor the several-hectare trial plots cared for by villagers such as Suryadi, is as vehement as his boss in support of the idea, taking Inquirer into the field to demonstrate the project at work.
"Look, mega-rice was never really about rice anyway," he says. "It was about looting the timber. And, frankly, palm oil is not much better. But this way people at least get to feel they have their land back. The local government does site surveys and rehabilitation projects in areas where they know there will be no scrutiny. They don't plant anything, they don't do anything.
"The people are sick of this fake rehabilitation, sick of being lied to."
Sumber: Article from:The Australian
PICTURE this: a government so arrogant, so hubris-bloated that it is prepared to wipe out a million hectares of virgin rainforest to plant rice, despite warnings from scientists that, apart from the grave ecological damage, less than 30 per cent of the area is even suitable for growing the staple crop.
Such a monumental act of stupidity and greed indeed happened in southern Central Kalimantan. The project was the brainchild of pride-filled dictator Suharto, desperate in the mid-1990s to reverse Indonesia's rice deficit that required imports and ready to go to any lengths suggested by cronies and rapacious family members to do it.
Not a single crop was reaped from what was known as the mega-rice project: at least none that would suffice for an evening meal. Plenty of valuable timber ended up as pure profit in the pockets of Jakarta's super-wealthy, however, as the rainforests that once soaked up carbon dioxide were stripped of their bounty, mostly for overseas sale.
Now supporters of the post-Suharto reformasi administration, including Australia, are scrambling to allocate money to redress the fiasco and get some climate-change runs on the board, but grave questions remain over how much of the damage can be undone.
By digging more than 4600km of channels connecting two large rivers that flowed into the Java Sea to the south of Central Kalimantan province and draining the peat-rich rainforest swamp on which the region's delicate ecosystem relied, Suharto's engineers created a catastrophe that scientists say could take several generations to reverse.
"At least 50 years in the least affected areas and hundreds of years in most of it," explains agronomist Suwido Limin. "The hydrographic situation here was changed completely and the peat became extremely sensitive to fire."
The project's aims, in a misguided attempt to produce a wet-rice cultivation system on cleared peatland, ignored the fact the rivers are lower than the rainforest water table, which rises and falls according to the monsoonal cycle. For wet irrigation, the water source needs to be at least as high as the paddy fields. The new canal system, although designed as an irrigation network for the entire area that could flood paddy fields during crop growth and drain them at harvest time, flows only in one direction: out to sea.
It is impossible to re-flood the areas intended to host the rice crops at planting time. The peat - dense layers of partly decomposed vegetation, several metres deep - dried out and left the area useless for agriculture. Further, the project's other main intended effect - easing land shortage in Java, Madura and Sulawesi by offering agricultural space to thousands of people from those islands - failed completely, along with the harvest. The new arrivals then put greater pressure on existing food and other resources.
The only effective way to re-establish the peat, where that is possible at all, is to replant the land with appropriate rainforest species and to dam the canal network to isolate the forests once more from tidal fluctuation.
That's a project being championed by Suwido, Indonesia's foremost expert on peatland biodiversity who runs an international centre for peatland preservation at the University of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan's capital city.
It's significant that Suwido is a Dayak, the region's dominant ethnic group, which has historically had deep links to the land.
Indonesia's 90 million hectares of forests, which because of their ability to absorb CO2 play such a crucial role in the fight against global warming, are owned by the Government. It awards concessions to logging companies and plantation corporations, in particular those seeking to enter the lucrative palm oil market. Groups such as the Dayaks in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, are legally recognised as having stewardship over their traditional lands, which they typically harvest in sustainable fashion for a range of crops including coffee, rubber, rattan and various timbers. Now in many areas they are fighting back against the forest-clearing that, although it has been going on for decades, took off with the launch of Suharto's scheme in 1995 and has more recently hit warp speed with the palm oil boom, part of the race to produce viable biofuels.
These fuels are supposed to reduce dependence on fossil equivalents and thus tackle global warming head-on; but, ironically, the consensus is that Indonesia's ravaged peatlands and their consequent wildfires have made it the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the US and China.
A UN report this year suggested that, at present rates, 98 per cent of the country's rainforest will be destroyed within 15 years. The possible extinction of fauna such as orang-utans and tigers is part of the price likely to be paid for global warming.
Alarmed at the prospect, some prominent Kalimantan figures, such as Dayak leader Stone Christopel Sahabu from Cempaga village, several hours north of Palangkaraya, have organised community resistance camps deep in what remains of their forests, armed with traditional weapons and prepared to repel bulldozers and oil palm plantation bosses.
"We'll do this until the end, until we get proper title to the land. Guarding the forests was our responsibility from the beginning," Stone warns from his comfortable village home, where he is helping his wife recover from an infected foot injury and his grandson from a bout of malaria.
"The forest is just as much my home as this is." An official government document gives the lithe and strong 74-year-old authority to take care of - but not ownership of - the nearby 10,000ha he has helped preside through for decades.
It took just one week last year for excavators to turn 6000ha of that land into a oil palm plantation, he says. Now he's trying to work out how to fight the invasion in the courts.
Activists such as Suwido and Stone could prove to be powerful allies for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has hitched his car to the environmental train, the next station being the UN climate change conference in Bali starting on December 3.
At that meeting a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will begin to take shape. Indonesia, with vast natural resources but also expansive power needs, wants to be in for the ride. Australia does too, even though the crucial matter of developing nations signing up to binding targets is likely to derail significant progress, at least in the short term.
In March, Yudhoyono decreed that Central Kalimantan's devastated peatlands be "rehabilitated and revitalised".
The wreckage of the mega-rice project - halted by Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie in 1998 - had contributed several times already to the terrible forest fires that covered Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia in thick smoke during subsequent dry seasons and almost caused diplomatic breakdowns between Jakarta and its northern neighbours.
The fires still burn during the midyear dry. They are especially rapacious because the metres-deep biomass becomes easily combustible once it dries out and the blazes are all but impossible to extinguish.
Only in the wet season, when heavy downpours can continue for hours on end, are fires really smothered. During the worst dry spells, the rich humus smoulders for months, reigniting spontaneously in the fierce heat and producing a pall thick enough to shut down airports and reduce visibility to a few metres.
Yudhoyono knows that tackling his country's rampant deforestation problem is the only way to gain international credibility on the environment, but he also has picked a contentious way of going about it, by joining the so-called Forest Eight group of nations - Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea - which want money for agreeing not to cut down certain parts of their rainforests. The concept is called avoided deforestation and it's based on the idea that these developing countries suffer a greater economic loss by keeping forest areas than by mining their wealth and turning the land over to plantations, mines and other industry.
Part of the deal will be a post-Kyoto agreement that brings rainforest-based greenhouse gas emission net cuts into the international carbon-trading regime.
And all of that is precisely where Yudhoyono's project to regenerate the dead peatlands of Central Kalimantan - and Australia's enthusiastic embrace of the plan - comes in.
Scientists believe peat in its natural state - centuries-old, partly decomposed organic matter deep in swampy forests - absorbs carbon dioxide, like trees. When the peat dries and burns, the dense smoke is accompanied by vast amounts of the stored carbon. Tackling that problem - or appearing to be doing so - adds clout on the climate change circuit.
Indonesian scientist Alue Dohong, of Wetlands International, stresses that peatland rehabilitation is not just an Indonesian problem "but a global one because even without the fires these dried-out peatlands are releasing 50 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year into the atmosphere".
The Australian Government's $30 million contribution to a projected $100 million government-industry Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership, to which BHP Billiton has signed up, aims to reforest, reflood and preserve peatland on the Indonesian part of huge Borneo island. Exactly how is not clear: even government officials admit the scheme's detail is still being ironed out and applications closed last week for a Jakarta-based project administrator, who will take up the post in February. However, if the project follows any of the methods of previous Indonesian government rehabilitation efforts, Suwido says, it will almost certainly be a complete waste of money, apart from the image boost for firms such as BHP Billiton, a huge miner in Kalimantan and across the region, as a result of their role in an ostensibly green scheme.
"I don't want a developed nation like Australia to spend all that money for nothing," the scientist explains, gesturing at maps in his office showing the destroyed region. "But if it's anything like what's happened in the past, then I'm really not certain all the money won't just go straight into officials' pockets." Suwido's main criticism is of projects that aim to plant a given number of trees but include no mechanism for measuring their survival rate.
"The Government plants trees, the people look at them and say, 'That's nice', and the trees die," he says, almost furious in his dismay at the lack of accountability still evident in Indonesia. "Then they measure the success of their project by how many trees they have handed out. But how many of those trees have done anything? They say, 'We've replanted so many hectares', but there might in the end be only one tree still living on each of those hectares."
The approach also takes no account of the porous system of oversight on logging and plantation concessions in Indonesia, notoriously rife with corruption and ripe for abuse. Even the country's dwindling national parks are not safe from the greased palms of officials eager for a little extra.
Ever the campaigner, Suwido and his small university centre's staff of 10 have been running a pilot project where villagers in degraded mega-rice districts near Palangkaraya are given a variety of selected trees - a native species of melaleuca, say, which produces a fast-growing timber suitable for building houses - then paid a small amount of money each quarter for every one that remains alive. If the tree dies, they get nothing.
Monitoring the results is labour intensive but economically far more efficient than the Government's schemes as they exist, Suwido argues. "The people feel like they are actually responsible for the trees, which is how they treated the forests before they were wiped out. But the Government (says it's) not interested, because (it's) already rehabilitated two million hectares. Well, show me how many trees are on those two million hectares."
Suryadi, a woman from the small village of Kalampangan where the pilot project is focused, says it is working better than she expected, enabling her to "plant vegetables, especially green beans, although it's not so good when it floods" (a result of the canal drainage system).
Suwido staff member Sahara Alim, one of the workers who helps monitor the several-hectare trial plots cared for by villagers such as Suryadi, is as vehement as his boss in support of the idea, taking Inquirer into the field to demonstrate the project at work.
"Look, mega-rice was never really about rice anyway," he says. "It was about looting the timber. And, frankly, palm oil is not much better. But this way people at least get to feel they have their land back. The local government does site surveys and rehabilitation projects in areas where they know there will be no scrutiny. They don't plant anything, they don't do anything.
"The people are sick of this fake rehabilitation, sick of being lied to."
Protecting peatlands will help the climate
Tuesday, 02 September 2008 08:23am
Sumber : ©The Star, Malaysia (Used by permission)
by Hilary Chiew
AFTER years of screaming for funds to address the massive peatland loss in Indonesia, conservationists are finally getting noticed. The realisation that those annual peat fires not only contribute to hazy skies and respiratory ailments but are also accelerating global warming has attracted attention beyond the region.
Peatlands cover approximately 27 million hectares in South-East Asia and are assumed to store at least 42,000 million tonnes of soil carbon. This carbon is released into the atmosphere when peatlands are drained for cultivation and forests are logged. In the region, 12 million ha of peatlands are currently deforested and mostly drained for agriculture activities particularly oil palm plantation.
As anticipated, the Bali Road Map (the main outcome of the last climate summit) puts the carbon dioxide emissions from “forest carbon stocks” like peatlands on the agenda for a post-Kyoto climate treaty. And the good news is that the annual contribution of 2,000 million tonnes of carbon from degraded peat swamp, mainly in Kalimantan and Sumatra, can be avoided cost-effectively as demonstrated by several non-governmental organisation-led projects such as the Central Kalimantan Peatland Project (CKPP).
These initiatives largely funded by European governments are already outshining the respective national action plan against peat fire that Asean (Association of South-East Asia Nations) members has deliberated for years.
The largest single source of carbon emission from the land-use sector is also attracting carbon traders looking for potential carbon offset projects which in turn provides a new avenue of funding like the Global Peatland Fund (GPF), launched at the climate meeting in Bali last December.
A partnership between Wetlands International and BioX Group of Netherlands (carbon reduction and emission trading project developer), the GPF aims to sell carbon credits through the voluntary market mechanism and earn Voluntary Emission Reductions (VERs).
“The Fund will invest in peatland restoration and conservation projects. These projects will generate large volumes of VERs by avoiding carbon emissions at comparatively low costs. The sale of VERs will generate a good return for the investors while the remaining profits of the Fund’s operations will be invested into community development projects.
“The target is to restore and protect approximately 500,000ha of peatlands by 2012. To realise this ambition, the GPF is seeking initial funding of at least Euro10mil for its first 50,000ha of development from one or more investors who receive a maximum return of 15% either through cash payments or off-take of VERs,” said the Fund promoters.
Wetlands International’s existing peatland restoration projects in Kalimantan including the CKPP will serve as a showcase and could be replicated in other degraded peatlands. Some 200,000ha were rehabilitated by blocking channels and replanting endemic plants.
Site co-ordinator Alue Dohong says the endemic jelutong tree produces valuable resin used in manufacturing chewing gum and this could generate income for the local communities in five years time.
The Fund will focus on the two most vulnerable peat swamp areas in Indonesia – Kalimantan and Sumatra – where studies have shown that of the 2,000 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted, 600 million tonnes are caused by decomposition of dry peat and 1,400 million tonnes are lost through the annual fires. This staggering figure is five times the carbon emission of the country from fossil fuel sources and makes Indonesia the third largest CO2 emitter in the world after the United States and China.
Jane Madgwick, chief executive officer of Wetlands International says the partnership provides the opportunity to scale up the work of restoring tropical peat swamps to benefit biodiversity and livelihoods while securing vital carbon sinks.
Current data from the existing Wetlands International project in Kalimantan illustrates the potential of peatland restoration for climate change mitigation. A peatland area of approximately 50,000ha can achieve a net carbon reduction of over two million tonnes of annual CO2 emissions against an overall infrastructure investment of ?20mil (RM100mil) and an annual maintenance and operation costs of ?5mil (RM25mil).
Compared to the value of carbon credits or measures taken in Annex I countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cost tens of Euros per tonne, the attractiveness of cheap carbon credits from Indonesian peatlands is obvious.
The restoration projects identified so far are re-flooding previously drained and deforested peatlands by building dams in the drainage canals, reforestation using native species, protection of remaining peat forests from deforestation and fire prevention plan. For a start, the badly damaged peatlands in the ex-Mega Rice Project and the logged-over Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan and the Berbak National Park in Jambi province are being targeted.
BioX’s sustainability manager Arjen Brinkmann says mechanisms of the Fund are currently being worked out and the first project is scheduled to start year end. “We have received significant interest from potential investors as well as potential VER buyers,” he enthuses.
Losing out
While the focus is on Indonesia, Malaysia which accounts for 1.6 million ha of the crucial wetlands in this region, could also benefit from similar projects. However, the pattern of destruction over here where oil palm plantations continue to carve up the peat dome makes it harder to plug the draining of the water-logged ecosystem.
Global Environment Centre director Faizal Parish points out the urgency to identify potential sites for restoration and stop the harmful landuse before more peat swamps become beyond redemption.
He says a desirable plot will be between 5,000ha to 50,000ha. Parish explains that smaller sites would be subjected to continued drainage from activities surrounding it that quicken the decomposition rate. Such a scenario, says Parish, is prevailing in Sarawak which holds 1.12million ha, the bulk of the country’s peat swamps.
However, the situation in the states of Pahang, Selangor and Sabah offers some potential for Malaysia to tap into the growing carbon market. For example, peatlands in Klias Peninsula on the west coast of Sabah that was burnt a decade ago during the severe El Nino episode is still being drained.
“State governments of Pahang, Selangor and Sabah should look at the potential of carbon market as a payment for preventing further global warming. Depending on the set up of the market mechanisms, they can derive higher revenues compared with plantations which pay a low land premium to the states,” suggests Parish.
The three states are in good stead to incorporate sound peatland management after participating in the five-year United Nations Development Programme/Global Environment Facility funded project on peat swamp forest.
Pahang has agreed to gazette 20,000ha to connect the fragmented reserves in the south-east Pahang peat swamp forests, effectively creating a biodiversity corridor besides enlarging the buffer from 500m to 1km.
“If they follow the management plan, they are in a viable position to be paid for carbon sequestration,” says chief technical advisor Dr Efransjah.
Petani Punya Metode Tekan Kemasaman Tanah
Sumber: Kompas, Rabu, 22 Februari 2006
Palangkaraya, Kompas - Petani transmigran di daerah Kalampangan, Kecamatan Sabangau, Palangkaraya, Kalimantan Tengah, ternyata memiliki cara pengelolaan gambut sehingga cocok dijadikan lahan pertanian sayur-sayuran dan palawija.
Bahkan, Kalampangan saat ini menjadi salah satu daerah penyangga sayuran bagi Palangkaraya. Selain diambil tengkulak, banyak petani yang langsung menjual hasil bercocok tanamnya ke Palangkaraya.
Kemasaman tanah
Marsudi, petani yang ditemui di Kalampangan, Selasa (21/2), menuturkan, metode pengelolaan gambut tersebut dulunya mereka temukan secara coba-coba sejak kawasan tersebut dibuka sebagai lokasi transmigrasi sekitar 25 tahun lalu.
Kendala bertani di lahan gambut, ujar Marsudi, adalah tingginya kemasaman tanah. Petani Kalampangan menurunkan derajat kemasaman ini dengan membolak-balik tanah, penebaran kapur, dan mencuci lahan.
Pencucian lahan ini dilakukan secara berangsur-angsur, yaitu mengandalkan curahan air hujan. Adapun saat kemarau, pengairan lahan dilakukan dengan menyedot air dari sumur. Dua unit sumur sedalam 12 meter dapat mengairi sekitar dua hektar lahan milik transmigran.
Berdasar pemantauan Kompas, di tepian lahan gambut Kalampangan terdapat parit-parit dengan lebar dan kedalaman sekitar 50 sentimeter. Melalui parit tersebut, air di lahan gambut keluar dan dialirkan ke parit pengeringan besar dengan lebar dan kedalaman sekitar satu meter, di setiap jarak 500 meter.
Melalui penjagaan aliran air semacam itu, kemasaman tanah di lahan Kalampangan sedikit demi sedikit dapat dinetralkan sehingga cocok sebagai lahan pertanian. Sempit dan dangkalnya parit di lahan-lahan gambut Kalampangan menjadikan kelembaban tanah tetap terjaga.
Pernah dicoba
Koordinator Program Wetlands International Indonesia di Kalimantan, Alue Dohong, menuturkan, metode pencucian lahan untuk menurunkan derajat kemasaman gambut ini dulunya juga pernah dicoba dilakukan saat Proyek Lahan Gambut (PLG) Sejuta Hektar dicanangkan.
Kesalahan waktu itu, menurut Alue, parit yang digali di lahan PLG Sejuta Hektar berukuran terlalu besar dan dalam, serta ada parit yang membelah kubah-kubah gambut. Rata-rata parit yang membelah kawasan PLG lebarnya sekitar 14 meter, bahkan ada yang 30 meter, yaitu di bagian saluran primer induk.
”Akibatnya, air di kawasan gambut terkuras dan masuk ke parit dan kemudian terbuang ke sungai. Lahan eks PLG menjadi kering pada saat kemarau sehingga mudah terbakar. Di musim hujan terjadi banjir karena tidak ada vegetasi penahan air,” ujar Alue. (CAS)
Palangkaraya, Kompas - Petani transmigran di daerah Kalampangan, Kecamatan Sabangau, Palangkaraya, Kalimantan Tengah, ternyata memiliki cara pengelolaan gambut sehingga cocok dijadikan lahan pertanian sayur-sayuran dan palawija.
Bahkan, Kalampangan saat ini menjadi salah satu daerah penyangga sayuran bagi Palangkaraya. Selain diambil tengkulak, banyak petani yang langsung menjual hasil bercocok tanamnya ke Palangkaraya.
Kemasaman tanah
Marsudi, petani yang ditemui di Kalampangan, Selasa (21/2), menuturkan, metode pengelolaan gambut tersebut dulunya mereka temukan secara coba-coba sejak kawasan tersebut dibuka sebagai lokasi transmigrasi sekitar 25 tahun lalu.
Kendala bertani di lahan gambut, ujar Marsudi, adalah tingginya kemasaman tanah. Petani Kalampangan menurunkan derajat kemasaman ini dengan membolak-balik tanah, penebaran kapur, dan mencuci lahan.
Pencucian lahan ini dilakukan secara berangsur-angsur, yaitu mengandalkan curahan air hujan. Adapun saat kemarau, pengairan lahan dilakukan dengan menyedot air dari sumur. Dua unit sumur sedalam 12 meter dapat mengairi sekitar dua hektar lahan milik transmigran.
Berdasar pemantauan Kompas, di tepian lahan gambut Kalampangan terdapat parit-parit dengan lebar dan kedalaman sekitar 50 sentimeter. Melalui parit tersebut, air di lahan gambut keluar dan dialirkan ke parit pengeringan besar dengan lebar dan kedalaman sekitar satu meter, di setiap jarak 500 meter.
Melalui penjagaan aliran air semacam itu, kemasaman tanah di lahan Kalampangan sedikit demi sedikit dapat dinetralkan sehingga cocok sebagai lahan pertanian. Sempit dan dangkalnya parit di lahan-lahan gambut Kalampangan menjadikan kelembaban tanah tetap terjaga.
Pernah dicoba
Koordinator Program Wetlands International Indonesia di Kalimantan, Alue Dohong, menuturkan, metode pencucian lahan untuk menurunkan derajat kemasaman gambut ini dulunya juga pernah dicoba dilakukan saat Proyek Lahan Gambut (PLG) Sejuta Hektar dicanangkan.
Kesalahan waktu itu, menurut Alue, parit yang digali di lahan PLG Sejuta Hektar berukuran terlalu besar dan dalam, serta ada parit yang membelah kubah-kubah gambut. Rata-rata parit yang membelah kawasan PLG lebarnya sekitar 14 meter, bahkan ada yang 30 meter, yaitu di bagian saluran primer induk.
”Akibatnya, air di kawasan gambut terkuras dan masuk ke parit dan kemudian terbuang ke sungai. Lahan eks PLG menjadi kering pada saat kemarau sehingga mudah terbakar. Di musim hujan terjadi banjir karena tidak ada vegetasi penahan air,” ujar Alue. (CAS)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Peat bog destruction a major source of carbon dioxide emissions
Sumber: Australian Orang utan Project, created 3rd September 2007
Behind the News 27 August 2007.
The destruction of peat bogs in Indonesia, partly to grow supposedly "green" biofuels, releases more carbon dioxide every year than India or Russia and three times as much as Germany.
During the summer dry season, when fires lit to clear the jungle for palm oil plantations sweep the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the peat bogs can burn for months.
According to recent research by Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, "the emissions in 1997 alone", which was a particularly bad year, "were estimated to have reached 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions".
When the destruction of peat bogs is taken into account, Indonesia rises from 21st position to become the world's third-worst greenhouse gas polluter.
As the dry season gets under way, environmentalists in Central Borneo are waiting to see how bad this year will be. Last year, smoke covered much of Indonesia and Malaysia.
In Central Borneo "it was impossible to see from one side of the road to the other", said Nordin, of the Save Our Borneo Campaign, who uses only one name. Everything was covered in ash. A third of local children have respiratory diseases.
Peat is made up of ancient plant material which never decomposed fully due to wet conditions forming a carbon bank which continues to slowly store more carbon under natural conditions.
According to Wetlands International, a conservation group, the world's peat lands hold enough carbon for two thousand million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 70 years of global emissions at current levels. Nearly half of it is in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Indonesia. Burning the peat is only the most dramatic and rapid way in which the carbon is released.
Alue Dohong, who runs Wetlands International's operation in Central Borneo, says peat is like a sponge. When canals are cut through the bogs to drain them for agriculture the water rapidly flows out, drying the peat and making it flammable. But even if the peat doesn't burn, the carbon is oxidised and escapes into the atmosphere, releasing the same greenhouse gases more slowly. The earth shrinks, collapses and blows away.
Every square kilometre of drying peat produces an average of 8,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year through oxidisation alone.
One of the biggest environmental disasters on Borneo is the Mega Rice project, a 10,000-sq km area of former peat bog once covered with tropical forest that was felled, drained and burned by former Indonesian president Suharto for rice cultivation in the mid-1990s.
A tight grid of canals was cut through the area, destroying the peat, but rice never grew here. Suharto had ignored advice that the crop would fail in acidic soil.
"Who dared challenge Suharto at that time?" said Mr Dohong.
Today, the devastated area is strewn with the burned remains of trees and dusty soil. Ronald Vernimmen, a consultant from the Dutch engineering firm Delft Hydraulics, meanders down one of the canals in a motorised canoe.
He is involved in a survey to design a system of about 200 dams to prevent water seepage. Each one costs only about US$800 but, so far, just 12 have been built. Although the dry season is the best time for dam building, construction has stopped for lack of funds.
Although the existing degradation of peat lands in Borneo is alarming, there is economic pressure for even more bogs to be drained. Indonesia and Malaysia, which rule most of this giant island, are the world's top producers of palm oil, which is in growing demand for use in bio-diesel.
According to Wetlands International, each country grows about a quarter of its palm oil on peat lands. For the crop to flourish the land must be drained, resulting in carbon emissions that far outweigh any supposed environmental benefit.
In the Mega Rice area, which conservationists want to flood to preserve the peat, the district government has drawn up plans to plant 1,140 sq km of oil palms.
In all, Indonesia has allocated more than 100,000 sq km of Borneo for palm oil plantations by 2010. But campaigners say the official data is too opaque to know how much of this will be on peat land.
Ketut Sudiatmaja, the manager of a palm oil plantation, denied that his industry had any environmental responsibilities.
Moses Nicodemus, the director of environmental management for the Central Borneo provincial government, said he did not have data about palm oil plantations on peat bogs, and insisted that it was government policy to make the island "the lungs of the world".
It is also Indonesian government policy to surpass Malaysia to become the world's biggest palm oil producer, a goal it expects to achieve this year. The industry is booming, sparking mergers and takeovers among growers. Palm oil futures on the Malaysian exchange hit a record high of US$798 a tonne in June.
Supporting this growth is a guaranteed rise in demand for palm oil to make bio-diesel. European Union legislation requires that 2 per cent of all diesel must be vegetable oil, rising to 5.7 per cent in 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020. Elsewhere, governments including the US are promoting bio-fuels. Palm oil is used in many products besides fuel, from food and toothpaste to shampoo.
"The world is thirsty for palm oil," said environmentalist Hardi Baktiantoro from the Centre for Orangutan Protection. "Who doesn't need palm oil for food and cosmetics? I think everyone does."
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which set up carbon trading mechanisms to help limit greenhouse gas emissions, carbon released into the atmosphere through the destruction of forests and peat bogs is not included.
Environmentalists are pinning their hopes on a major UN climate conference in Bali in December. There is growing pressure, including from some governments, for a new carbon trading system to take account of carbon stored in peat and forests, thus creating an economic incentive to preserve them.
from Hardi Baktiantoro
COP I Centre for Orangutan Protection
Behind the News 27 August 2007.
The destruction of peat bogs in Indonesia, partly to grow supposedly "green" biofuels, releases more carbon dioxide every year than India or Russia and three times as much as Germany.
During the summer dry season, when fires lit to clear the jungle for palm oil plantations sweep the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the peat bogs can burn for months.
According to recent research by Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, "the emissions in 1997 alone", which was a particularly bad year, "were estimated to have reached 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions".
When the destruction of peat bogs is taken into account, Indonesia rises from 21st position to become the world's third-worst greenhouse gas polluter.
As the dry season gets under way, environmentalists in Central Borneo are waiting to see how bad this year will be. Last year, smoke covered much of Indonesia and Malaysia.
In Central Borneo "it was impossible to see from one side of the road to the other", said Nordin, of the Save Our Borneo Campaign, who uses only one name. Everything was covered in ash. A third of local children have respiratory diseases.
Peat is made up of ancient plant material which never decomposed fully due to wet conditions forming a carbon bank which continues to slowly store more carbon under natural conditions.
According to Wetlands International, a conservation group, the world's peat lands hold enough carbon for two thousand million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 70 years of global emissions at current levels. Nearly half of it is in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Indonesia. Burning the peat is only the most dramatic and rapid way in which the carbon is released.
Alue Dohong, who runs Wetlands International's operation in Central Borneo, says peat is like a sponge. When canals are cut through the bogs to drain them for agriculture the water rapidly flows out, drying the peat and making it flammable. But even if the peat doesn't burn, the carbon is oxidised and escapes into the atmosphere, releasing the same greenhouse gases more slowly. The earth shrinks, collapses and blows away.
Every square kilometre of drying peat produces an average of 8,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year through oxidisation alone.
One of the biggest environmental disasters on Borneo is the Mega Rice project, a 10,000-sq km area of former peat bog once covered with tropical forest that was felled, drained and burned by former Indonesian president Suharto for rice cultivation in the mid-1990s.
A tight grid of canals was cut through the area, destroying the peat, but rice never grew here. Suharto had ignored advice that the crop would fail in acidic soil.
"Who dared challenge Suharto at that time?" said Mr Dohong.
Today, the devastated area is strewn with the burned remains of trees and dusty soil. Ronald Vernimmen, a consultant from the Dutch engineering firm Delft Hydraulics, meanders down one of the canals in a motorised canoe.
He is involved in a survey to design a system of about 200 dams to prevent water seepage. Each one costs only about US$800 but, so far, just 12 have been built. Although the dry season is the best time for dam building, construction has stopped for lack of funds.
Although the existing degradation of peat lands in Borneo is alarming, there is economic pressure for even more bogs to be drained. Indonesia and Malaysia, which rule most of this giant island, are the world's top producers of palm oil, which is in growing demand for use in bio-diesel.
According to Wetlands International, each country grows about a quarter of its palm oil on peat lands. For the crop to flourish the land must be drained, resulting in carbon emissions that far outweigh any supposed environmental benefit.
In the Mega Rice area, which conservationists want to flood to preserve the peat, the district government has drawn up plans to plant 1,140 sq km of oil palms.
In all, Indonesia has allocated more than 100,000 sq km of Borneo for palm oil plantations by 2010. But campaigners say the official data is too opaque to know how much of this will be on peat land.
Ketut Sudiatmaja, the manager of a palm oil plantation, denied that his industry had any environmental responsibilities.
Moses Nicodemus, the director of environmental management for the Central Borneo provincial government, said he did not have data about palm oil plantations on peat bogs, and insisted that it was government policy to make the island "the lungs of the world".
It is also Indonesian government policy to surpass Malaysia to become the world's biggest palm oil producer, a goal it expects to achieve this year. The industry is booming, sparking mergers and takeovers among growers. Palm oil futures on the Malaysian exchange hit a record high of US$798 a tonne in June.
Supporting this growth is a guaranteed rise in demand for palm oil to make bio-diesel. European Union legislation requires that 2 per cent of all diesel must be vegetable oil, rising to 5.7 per cent in 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020. Elsewhere, governments including the US are promoting bio-fuels. Palm oil is used in many products besides fuel, from food and toothpaste to shampoo.
"The world is thirsty for palm oil," said environmentalist Hardi Baktiantoro from the Centre for Orangutan Protection. "Who doesn't need palm oil for food and cosmetics? I think everyone does."
Under the Kyoto Protocol, which set up carbon trading mechanisms to help limit greenhouse gas emissions, carbon released into the atmosphere through the destruction of forests and peat bogs is not included.
Environmentalists are pinning their hopes on a major UN climate conference in Bali in December. There is growing pressure, including from some governments, for a new carbon trading system to take account of carbon stored in peat and forests, thus creating an economic incentive to preserve them.
from Hardi Baktiantoro
COP I Centre for Orangutan Protection
Good oil, bad environmental effect, ugly cost
Sumber: The Sydney Morning Herald, June 19,2007
Borneo should be a beachhead in the fight against global warming. Shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, the island produces much of the world's palm oil, the most energy-efficient of several vegetable oils being used in place of fossil fuels. Instead, Borneo is becoming a case study in how good environmental intentions can backfire.
Driven by government subsidies for biofuels, which are made partly from plants and release less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels when burned, companies have cleared thousands of square kilometres of rainforest and drained swamps that have trapped carbon in their watery depths for millennia.
Since the 1970s Malaysia and Indonesia have drained 120,000 square kilometres of peat swamps for plantations and other land uses. The two countries have announced plans to drain another 31,000 square kilometres over the next 20 years, says Wetlands International, an environmental group in the Netherlands. As the peat has dried, and sometimes burned, it has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Drained peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia annually released 2 billion tonnes of carbon between 1997 and last year, an amount roughly equal to 8 per cent of annual global emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, says a study released in December by Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, a research institute affiliated with the Dutch Government. If emissions from peat swamps were factored into calculations of national greenhouse gas emissions, Indonesia would jump from 21st place to third, behind the United States and China, the environmental group found.
"Many people think that producing more palm oil and switching to palm oil [as a biofuel] will help fight global warming, but in the peat lands there is a huge release of carbon dioxide," says Alue Dohong, the director of Wetland International's office in Palangkaraya, in Indonesian Borneo.
Palm oil has been used in the West for decades as an additive to food and cosmetics - still its primary use worldwide - but demand for it as a fuel is likely to drive future clearing of peat land, experts said.
In 2003 the European Union passed a resolution calling on member states to replace 20 per cent of fossil fuels with biofuels, including biodiesel made with palm oil, by 2020. Some US states give tax breaks to companies using biofuels and analysts expect demand to grow as Washington tries to wean Americans off oil.
Dohong spends much of his time ferrying visitors around Palangkaraya and explaining the relationship between peat - water-soaked plant detritus that in places is more than 21 metres deep - and global warming.
Standing on the bank of a canal an hour's drive from the city, Dohong pointed to black water leaking from the earth. When canals are dug to drain peat swamps and transport logs to market, the peat dries and oxygen combines with the trapped carbon, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, he says.
Because dry peat is extremely flammable, fires frequently erupt on cleared land. In 1997 fires in Indonesia sent smoke billowing throughout South-East Asia and released massive amounts of carbon dioxide. A 2002 study by British scientists estimated that the 1997 fires released 15 to 40 per cent as much carbon as the world's total emissions from burning fossil fuels that year.
Worldwide, existing and planned refineries able to convert palm oil into fuel by mixing it with diesel "should absorb the bulk of palm oil inventories" and "will constitute new demand", the investment bank Credit Suisse said in a January report.
Cox Newspapers
Borneo should be a beachhead in the fight against global warming. Shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, the island produces much of the world's palm oil, the most energy-efficient of several vegetable oils being used in place of fossil fuels. Instead, Borneo is becoming a case study in how good environmental intentions can backfire.
Driven by government subsidies for biofuels, which are made partly from plants and release less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels when burned, companies have cleared thousands of square kilometres of rainforest and drained swamps that have trapped carbon in their watery depths for millennia.
Since the 1970s Malaysia and Indonesia have drained 120,000 square kilometres of peat swamps for plantations and other land uses. The two countries have announced plans to drain another 31,000 square kilometres over the next 20 years, says Wetlands International, an environmental group in the Netherlands. As the peat has dried, and sometimes burned, it has released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Drained peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia annually released 2 billion tonnes of carbon between 1997 and last year, an amount roughly equal to 8 per cent of annual global emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, says a study released in December by Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, a research institute affiliated with the Dutch Government. If emissions from peat swamps were factored into calculations of national greenhouse gas emissions, Indonesia would jump from 21st place to third, behind the United States and China, the environmental group found.
"Many people think that producing more palm oil and switching to palm oil [as a biofuel] will help fight global warming, but in the peat lands there is a huge release of carbon dioxide," says Alue Dohong, the director of Wetland International's office in Palangkaraya, in Indonesian Borneo.
Palm oil has been used in the West for decades as an additive to food and cosmetics - still its primary use worldwide - but demand for it as a fuel is likely to drive future clearing of peat land, experts said.
In 2003 the European Union passed a resolution calling on member states to replace 20 per cent of fossil fuels with biofuels, including biodiesel made with palm oil, by 2020. Some US states give tax breaks to companies using biofuels and analysts expect demand to grow as Washington tries to wean Americans off oil.
Dohong spends much of his time ferrying visitors around Palangkaraya and explaining the relationship between peat - water-soaked plant detritus that in places is more than 21 metres deep - and global warming.
Standing on the bank of a canal an hour's drive from the city, Dohong pointed to black water leaking from the earth. When canals are dug to drain peat swamps and transport logs to market, the peat dries and oxygen combines with the trapped carbon, releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, he says.
Because dry peat is extremely flammable, fires frequently erupt on cleared land. In 1997 fires in Indonesia sent smoke billowing throughout South-East Asia and released massive amounts of carbon dioxide. A 2002 study by British scientists estimated that the 1997 fires released 15 to 40 per cent as much carbon as the world's total emissions from burning fossil fuels that year.
Worldwide, existing and planned refineries able to convert palm oil into fuel by mixing it with diesel "should absorb the bulk of palm oil inventories" and "will constitute new demand", the investment bank Credit Suisse said in a January report.
Cox Newspapers
Pertanian Eks PLG Diprediksi Gagal
Sumber: Banjarmasin Pos, 18.02.2006; 03:36
Palangka Raya, BPost
Proyek pertanian rehabilitasi lahan gambut sejuta hektare atau yang lebih dikenal dengan PLG di Kabupaten Kapuas diprediksi bakal gagal, karena dilaksanakan tanpa perencanaan yang matang dan terkesan tergesa-gesa.
Kepala Kantor Wetlands International kantor cabang Palangka Raya, Alue Dohong, berpendapat, seharusnya sebelum melaksanakan proyek tersebut pemprop memperhitungkan secara matang kelayakan kawasan tersebut dijadikan sebagai kawasan pertanian.
Pasalnya kata dia, kawasan eks PLG tidak cocok untuk dijadikan sebagai kawasan Pertanian. "Yang cocok dijadikan hanya pada bagian kawasan pinggiran sungai saja atau coastalfit.
Sementara bagian darat hanya cocok ditanami pepohonan hutan seperti jelutung dan serta purun.
Pendapat senada dikemukakan pengkaji masalah gambut di Lembaga Pengabdian Pada Masyarakat (LPPM) Universitas Palangka Raya Dr Ir Aswin Usup MSc. Menurutnya, struktur tanah lahan gambut rentan terjadi penurunan.
Bahkan kata dia, dari hasil penelitiannya jika kawasan lahan gambut yang akan direhabilitasi sebagai kawasan pertanian tidak diteliti secara seksama, kawasan tersebut lama-kelamaan bisa berubah menjadi danau.
Sekadar mengingatkan, Gubernur Kalteng Agustin Teras Narang berdasarkan UU No 32/2004 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah mengusulkan kawasan PLG direhabilitasi sebagai kawasan pertanian.
Gubernur juga mengatakan, dalam jangka pendek pihak Bappenas dan Tim Daerah memfinalkan inpres tentang Rehabilitasi Kawasan Eks PLG satu juta hektare tersebut. Gubernur bahkan optimis draft tersebut final pada pertengahan Februari ini.tur
Palangka Raya, BPost
Proyek pertanian rehabilitasi lahan gambut sejuta hektare atau yang lebih dikenal dengan PLG di Kabupaten Kapuas diprediksi bakal gagal, karena dilaksanakan tanpa perencanaan yang matang dan terkesan tergesa-gesa.
Kepala Kantor Wetlands International kantor cabang Palangka Raya, Alue Dohong, berpendapat, seharusnya sebelum melaksanakan proyek tersebut pemprop memperhitungkan secara matang kelayakan kawasan tersebut dijadikan sebagai kawasan pertanian.
Pasalnya kata dia, kawasan eks PLG tidak cocok untuk dijadikan sebagai kawasan Pertanian. "Yang cocok dijadikan hanya pada bagian kawasan pinggiran sungai saja atau coastalfit.
Sementara bagian darat hanya cocok ditanami pepohonan hutan seperti jelutung dan serta purun.
Pendapat senada dikemukakan pengkaji masalah gambut di Lembaga Pengabdian Pada Masyarakat (LPPM) Universitas Palangka Raya Dr Ir Aswin Usup MSc. Menurutnya, struktur tanah lahan gambut rentan terjadi penurunan.
Bahkan kata dia, dari hasil penelitiannya jika kawasan lahan gambut yang akan direhabilitasi sebagai kawasan pertanian tidak diteliti secara seksama, kawasan tersebut lama-kelamaan bisa berubah menjadi danau.
Sekadar mengingatkan, Gubernur Kalteng Agustin Teras Narang berdasarkan UU No 32/2004 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah mengusulkan kawasan PLG direhabilitasi sebagai kawasan pertanian.
Gubernur juga mengatakan, dalam jangka pendek pihak Bappenas dan Tim Daerah memfinalkan inpres tentang Rehabilitasi Kawasan Eks PLG satu juta hektare tersebut. Gubernur bahkan optimis draft tersebut final pada pertengahan Februari ini.tur
Menangguk laba dari gas rumah kaca
Sumber: National Geographic Indonesia, Edisi Maret 2007
Firman, February 27th, 2007. 23 comments. Filed under Environment, Global warming, Nature, Science.
Hampir semua pihak, mulai kelompok musik The Rolling Stones hingga pemerintah Indonesia berusaha untuk menekan laju emisi karbon ke udara. Bangkitnya sebuah kesadaran akan pentingnya pelestarian lingkungan, atau upaya menghapus dosa?
Oleh Firman Firdaus
LIMA abad yang lalu, Martin Luther dan kaum reformis sezamannya pernah mengutuk kebijakan gereja Katolik, di mana seseorang bisa memperoleh pengampunan atas dosa-dosanya di masa lalu dengan membayar sejumlah uang. Praktik penghapusan dosa tersebut mungkin bisa menjadi analogi sekaligus simplifikasi yang pas untuk menjelaskan rumitnya perdagangan karbon, istilah yang menggaung beberapa tahun belakangan ini.
Melalui perdagangan karbon, negara-negara industri—sebagai penyumbang terbesar emisi gas karbon dioksida, biang kerok pemanasan global—bisa membayar suatu negara berkembang yang mampu mengupayakan pengurangan emisi karbon. Dengan begitu, ’dosa-dosa lingkungan’ negara tersebut dianggap tidak ada atau berkurang.
Perdagangan karbon dilahirkan melalui perjalanan yang amat panjang. Adalah laporan para ilmuwan pada 1990 tentang Perubahan Iklim yang telah memukul lonceng tanda bahaya bagi kehidupan umat manusia, dan mendesak agar dibentuk suatu kesepakatan global untuk mengatasi perubahan iklim. Dua tahun kemudian, disepakatilah konvensi PBB tentang perubahan iklim (United Nations Frameworks Convention on Climate Change atau UNFCCC) yang tujuan pokoknya menstabilkan konsentrasi gas rumah kaca (GRK) pada tingkat yang aman dan tidak mengganggu iklim global.
Berbagai paktapun diteken setelahnya. Yang terpenting adalah pertemuan di Kyoto, Jepang, pada 1997. Perjanjian yang dikenal dengan Protokol Kyoto itu mewajibkan negara-negara industri untuk mengurangi emisi GRK—salah satunya karbon dioksida—sebanyak 5,2% di bawah kadar yang mereka lepas pada tahun 1990 dalam kurun waktu lima tahun (mulai 2008-2012, yang disebut sebagai periode komitmen pertama). Protokol ini mulai mengikat secara hukum setelah Rusia meratifikasi pada 16 November 2004 sebagai negara ke-55. Hal ini sesuai kesepakatan, bahwa protokol mulai berlaku jika telah diratifikasi minimal 55 negara. Saat ini, sedikitnya 140 negara sudah menandatangani.
Protokol Kyoto menawarkan tiga mekanisme fleksibel untuk membantu negara-negara industri menekan laju emisi GRK: Implementasi Bersama (joint implementation/JI), Perdagangan Emisi Internasional (international emission trading/IET) dan Mekanisme Pembangunan Bersih (clean development mechanism atau CDM). CDM digagas karena begitu sulit memaksa negara-negara tersebut mengurangi emisi karbonnya, akibat begitu besarnya ketergantungan mereka pada konsumsi bahan bakar minyak. Sampai sekarang, Amerika Serikat saja masih menolak Protokol Kyoto. Dari tiga mekanisme fleksibel tersebut, hanya CDM yang melibatkan negara-negara berkembang. Dan, melalui CDM inilah tata cara perdagangan karbon dunia diatur.
Alhasil, karbon kini menjadi komoditas bisnis dadakan; FIFA, federasi sepak bola dunia, membeli beberapa kredit karbon sehubungan pelaksanaan Piala Dunia 2006 lalu. Kelompok musik kenamaan The Rolling Stones dan beberapa band lain membelinya sebagai kompensasi emisi GRK yang mereka buang dalam tur-tur mereka. Sementara Paramount, studio film Hollywood, juga membeli kredit karbon atas setiap emisi yang mereka keluarkan selama proses pembuatan film kontroversial tentang pemanasan global, An Inconvenient Truth (2006).
Bank Dunia tercatat sebagai pembeli kredit karbon paling royal: nilai transaksi pada 2005 diestimasi mencapai 10 miliar dolar. Bagi beberapa ”pemain”, jual-beli karbon memang perkara citra. Sampai saat ini, kebanyakan pembeli karbon adalah firma yang relatif beremisi rendah, seperti bank-bank, yang berharap bisa menggaet klien yang memiliki visi lingkungan. Namun bagi pemain lain, bisnis karbon adalah business as usual yang menggiurkan.
Hitung-hitungan bisnisnya relatif sederhana. Setiap upaya penurunan emisi yang setara dengan satu ton karbon (tCO2e) akan diganjar satu CER (certified emission reduction). Sertifikat yang mirip surat berharga ini dikeluarkan oleh Badan Eksekutif CDM di bawah UNFCCC. Negara industri yang sudah meratifikasi Protokol Kyoto (disebut dengan kelompok Annex-1), atau lembaga nonpemerintah manapun yang merasa berkepentingan, bisa membeli CER ini dari proyek-proyek CDM di negara berkembang (non-Annex-1) yang tidak diwajibkan untuk mengurangi emisi.
Layaknya komoditas dagang, harga CER bisa bervariasi, tergantung kesepakatan pihak-pihak yang bertransaksi. Tapi, secara rerata, harga satu CER berkisar 5-15 dolar AS. Jadi, jika suatu proyek CDM berhasil memproyeksikan pengurangan emisi sebesar 1 juta ton CO2e dalam setahun, pendapatan kasar yang diperoleh proyek tersebut satu tahunnya sekitar 10 juta dolar AS (jika diambil harga tengah 10 juta dolar) dari penjualan CER.
Perlu diketahui, istilah ”reduksi emisi karbon” tidak serta-merta berarti pengurangan kadar karbon yang sudah ada saat ini di udara, tetapi merupakan upaya menekan bertambahnya emisi GRK akibat penggunaan bahan bakar fosil. Jadi, angka-angka tersebut pada dasarnya adalah jumlah karbon yang diemisikan jika tanpa proyek CDM.
Di satu sisi, solusi ini terkesan menyederhanakan masalah dan kental dengan unsur ketidakadilan: negara industri bebas mengotori atmosfer selama mampu membeli CER sebagai kompensasinya. Tapi di sisi lain, bisnis karbon membuka berbagai peluang: membangkitkan perekonomian negara dunia ketiga sekaligus menciptakan kondisi lingkungan yang relatif lebih baik. ”Ide besarnya adalah memberikan nilai moneter pada usaha perbaikan lingkungan. Selama ini, konservasi lingkungan dianggap sebagai cost, liabilitas. Tapi dengan adanya CDM, pengelolaan lingkungan juga berarti aset berharga,” kata Agus P. Sari, Direktur Regional Asia Tenggara EcoSecurities, salah satu pemain besar perdagangan karbon yang bermarkas di Oxford, Inggris.
SETELAH meratifikasi Protokol Kyoto melalui Undang-undang Nomor 17 tahun 2004, Indonesia membuka peluang ikut serta dalam arus perdagangan karbon. Sebagai fasilitator dan koordinator CDM di tingkat nasional, pemerintah membentuk Komisi Nasional Mekanisme Pembangunan Bersih (Komnas MPB) di bawah koordinasi Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup pada Juli 2005. Di setiap negara, komisi semacam juga ada dengan sebutan DNA (designated national authority).
”Setiap proyek CDM harus diverifikasi dan divalidasi oleh DNA di masing-masing negara,” ucap Prasetyadi Utomo dari Sekretariat Komnas MPB. Menurut pengakuannya, Komnas MPB sama sekali tidak menarik pungutan apapun dari proses verifikasi. Hal ini dibenarkan oleh Agus selaku pengembang proyek. ”Memang cukup ganjil, tapi begitulah kenyataannya,” ujarnya dengan nada seloroh.
Berdasarkan Kajian Strategis Nasional sektor Kehutanan dan Energi (KSNKE) yang dilakukan pada tahun 2001-2002, Indonesia memiliki potensi pengurangan emisi GRK sekitar 23-24 juta ton CO2e per tahun. Jika dikonversi ke nilai CER, potensinya menjadi 230 juta dolar AS dalam setahun (sekitar 2,3 triliun rupiah). Bukan jumlah yang kecil.
Khusus sektor kehutanan (nonenergi), catatan KSNKE menyebut ada sekitar 15 juta hektare lahan di seluruh daerah di Indonesia yang bisa diajukan untuk proyek CDM. Mengetahui fakta ini, akhir-akhir ini banyak pemerintah daerah yang mempromosikan hutan di daerahnya untuk dijadikan proyek CDM. Padahal, masalahnya ternyata tidak sesederhana itu.
“Potensi kebocoran (leakage) hutan Indonesia cukup besar,” kata Alue Dohong, penggiat lingkungan dari Wetlands International Indonesia Program. Dalam skema CDM, leakage tidak diperkenankan. Leakage, papar Alue, bisa disebabkan oleh belum mapannya tata kelola hutan, masih tingginya insiden kebakaran hutan, maraknya pembalakan liar, dan inkonsistensi kebijakan penataan ruang. “Belum jelasnya metode penentuan batas wilayah dan kriteria hutan yang memenuhi syarat juga menjadi batu sandungan untuk mengembangkan hutan kita sebagai proyek CDM,” imbuh Alue.
Hutan yang diperkenankan, misalnya, adalah hutan ”buatan” manusia (dengan pembenihan, penanaman, dan sebagainya) pada lahan yang belum pernah menjadi hutan sedikitnya 50 tahun ke belakang. ”Teknis penghitungan reduksi emisi karbon oleh hutan juga sulit, mengingat daya ikat karbon setiap pohon dalam suatu hutan heterogen berbeda-beda,” jelas Deddy Hadriyanto, pakar kehutanan dari Universitas Mulawarman, Kalimantan Timur. Kawasan mangrove justru lebih berpeluang dari sisi teknis.
Karenanya, hingga saat ini belum ada proyek CDM berbasis hutan dari Indonesia yang berhasil disetujui. Amat kontras dengan sektor energi alternatif yang lebih ”seksi”. Kabar terakhir, delapan proyek sudah teregistrasi di Badan Eksekutif CDM. Hampir semuanya berbasis energi.
Chevron Geothermal Indonesia (CGI), melalui proyek pembangkit listrik tenaga panas bumi Darajat Unit III adalah yang terakhir mendapat persetujuan, Desember tahun lalu, dengan kapasitas pembangkit sebesar 110 megawatt. Seperti diketahui, Indonesia merupakan negara dengan kandungan panas bumi amat besar, bahkan yang terbesar di dunia atau 40 persen dari cadangan panas bumi dunia. Menurut riset yang dilakukan oleh Direktorat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi, di seluruh kepulauan Indonesia sedikitnya ada 244 titik yang merupakan sumber panas bumi potensial, dengan kapasitas pembangkit sebesar 29.000 megawatt. Namun, hingga saat ini, jumlah total yang tereksplorasi hanya sekitar 1.000 megawatt, alias baru sekira lima persen. Sebagai perbandingan betapa efisiennya tenaga geotermal, 1.000 megawatt ekivalen geotermal untuk 30 tahun setara dengan 465 juta barel minyak bumi.
Menurut data CGI, emisi karbon dioksida dari pembangkit listrik tenaga panas bumi hanya sekitar sepersepuluh dari emisi yang diembuskan oleh pembangkit konvensional seperti batu bara, dan seperenam dari bahan bakar disel dan minyak. Selisih jumlah emisi inilah yang bisa dijadikan kredit karbon untuk diperjualbelikan.
Namun, bukan berarti sumber energi ini tidak memiliki kelemahan. Halangan utama eksplorasi panas bumi terletak pada besarnya biaya investasi, terutama jika dibandingkan dengan bahan bakar fosil. Komoditas ini juga tidak dapat diekspor seperti halnya minyak bumi. Selain itu, berbeda dengan minyak dan batu bara, mobilitas panas bumi juga rendah, tidak dapat berpindah-pindah dengan leluasa. Karena itu, pemanfaatannya mesti langsung dari sumber eksplorasi.
Proyek lain yang cukup menarik adalah pemanfaatan limbah hewan yang dilakukan oleh peternakan PT Indotirta Suaka Bulan di Riau dan Lampung Bekri Biogas. Suaka Bulan mengelola kotoran dari peternakan babi seluas 1.700 hektare di Pulau Bulan, Riau. Dengan teknik pencerna anaerobik (anaerobic digester), gas metana (CH4, salah satu GRK) yang ditangkap bisa dimanfaatkan untuk bahan bakar. Rata-rata, setiap tahunnya instalasi biogas ini diperkirakan dapat mengurangi emisi karbon sebesar 166.000 ribu ton CO2e.
Mirip dengan Suaka Bulan, Lampung Bekri menggunakan reaktor anaerobik bawah tanah tertutup (CIGAR) untuk menangkap gas metana dari kotoran sapi. Komposisi biogas yang diperoleh melalui proyek berskala kecil ini adalah 65% metana dan 35% CO2, dengan rata-rata reduksi emisi 18.826 ton CO2e per tahun. Produk kompor pun bisa dimanfaatkan untuk proyek CDM. Tetapi bukan sembarang kompor, tentunya. Alat masak yang diproduksi oleh PT Petromat Agrotech yang berkongsi dengan Klimaschutz e.V. dari Jerman ini menggunakan tenaga matahari sebagai sumber panasnya. Dengan begitu, penggunaan minyak tanah atau gas elpiji yang menghasilkan polusi karbon bisa ditekan. ”Kompor ini merupakan bagian dari usaha memperbaiki lingkungan, karena itu kami amat mendukungnya,” ucap Rudi Wahyudi dari Petromat Agrotech.
Berdiameter sekitar satu meter, bentuk kompor surya ini relatif sederhana, mirip sebuah parabola yang bagian permukaan cekungnya dilapisi bahan cermin yang bisa memantulkan cahaya. Dengan bentuk parabola, cahaya bisa dipantulkan terpusat ke sebuah penyangga wadah masak, sehingga menghasilkan panas yang cukup untuk memasak berbagai jenis makanan, mulai nasi goreng hingga sayur sup. Menurut rencana, akhir Februari, sekitar 1.000 unit kompor surya ini akan diserahkan secara cuma-cuma kepada para nelayan di Sabang, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.
Saat ini ada dua proyek lagi dari Indonesia yang masih mengantre untuk disetujui oleh Badan Eksekutif CDM. Bukan tidak mungkin jumlahnya akan terus bertambah. Hingga saat ini, beberapa proposal proyek juga terus diterima oleh Komnas MPB.
Kabar baik? Belum tentu. Yang perlu didesak adalah komitmen setiap pihak untuk melestarikan lingkungan, tidak peduli apakah ada atau tidak ada keuntungan finansial di belakangnya. Apalagi sekadar upaya menghapus dosa, seperti yang dikhawatirkan Martin Luther terhadap gereja Katolik lima abad silam
Firman, February 27th, 2007. 23 comments. Filed under Environment, Global warming, Nature, Science.
Hampir semua pihak, mulai kelompok musik The Rolling Stones hingga pemerintah Indonesia berusaha untuk menekan laju emisi karbon ke udara. Bangkitnya sebuah kesadaran akan pentingnya pelestarian lingkungan, atau upaya menghapus dosa?
Oleh Firman Firdaus
LIMA abad yang lalu, Martin Luther dan kaum reformis sezamannya pernah mengutuk kebijakan gereja Katolik, di mana seseorang bisa memperoleh pengampunan atas dosa-dosanya di masa lalu dengan membayar sejumlah uang. Praktik penghapusan dosa tersebut mungkin bisa menjadi analogi sekaligus simplifikasi yang pas untuk menjelaskan rumitnya perdagangan karbon, istilah yang menggaung beberapa tahun belakangan ini.
Melalui perdagangan karbon, negara-negara industri—sebagai penyumbang terbesar emisi gas karbon dioksida, biang kerok pemanasan global—bisa membayar suatu negara berkembang yang mampu mengupayakan pengurangan emisi karbon. Dengan begitu, ’dosa-dosa lingkungan’ negara tersebut dianggap tidak ada atau berkurang.
Perdagangan karbon dilahirkan melalui perjalanan yang amat panjang. Adalah laporan para ilmuwan pada 1990 tentang Perubahan Iklim yang telah memukul lonceng tanda bahaya bagi kehidupan umat manusia, dan mendesak agar dibentuk suatu kesepakatan global untuk mengatasi perubahan iklim. Dua tahun kemudian, disepakatilah konvensi PBB tentang perubahan iklim (United Nations Frameworks Convention on Climate Change atau UNFCCC) yang tujuan pokoknya menstabilkan konsentrasi gas rumah kaca (GRK) pada tingkat yang aman dan tidak mengganggu iklim global.
Berbagai paktapun diteken setelahnya. Yang terpenting adalah pertemuan di Kyoto, Jepang, pada 1997. Perjanjian yang dikenal dengan Protokol Kyoto itu mewajibkan negara-negara industri untuk mengurangi emisi GRK—salah satunya karbon dioksida—sebanyak 5,2% di bawah kadar yang mereka lepas pada tahun 1990 dalam kurun waktu lima tahun (mulai 2008-2012, yang disebut sebagai periode komitmen pertama). Protokol ini mulai mengikat secara hukum setelah Rusia meratifikasi pada 16 November 2004 sebagai negara ke-55. Hal ini sesuai kesepakatan, bahwa protokol mulai berlaku jika telah diratifikasi minimal 55 negara. Saat ini, sedikitnya 140 negara sudah menandatangani.
Protokol Kyoto menawarkan tiga mekanisme fleksibel untuk membantu negara-negara industri menekan laju emisi GRK: Implementasi Bersama (joint implementation/JI), Perdagangan Emisi Internasional (international emission trading/IET) dan Mekanisme Pembangunan Bersih (clean development mechanism atau CDM). CDM digagas karena begitu sulit memaksa negara-negara tersebut mengurangi emisi karbonnya, akibat begitu besarnya ketergantungan mereka pada konsumsi bahan bakar minyak. Sampai sekarang, Amerika Serikat saja masih menolak Protokol Kyoto. Dari tiga mekanisme fleksibel tersebut, hanya CDM yang melibatkan negara-negara berkembang. Dan, melalui CDM inilah tata cara perdagangan karbon dunia diatur.
Alhasil, karbon kini menjadi komoditas bisnis dadakan; FIFA, federasi sepak bola dunia, membeli beberapa kredit karbon sehubungan pelaksanaan Piala Dunia 2006 lalu. Kelompok musik kenamaan The Rolling Stones dan beberapa band lain membelinya sebagai kompensasi emisi GRK yang mereka buang dalam tur-tur mereka. Sementara Paramount, studio film Hollywood, juga membeli kredit karbon atas setiap emisi yang mereka keluarkan selama proses pembuatan film kontroversial tentang pemanasan global, An Inconvenient Truth (2006).
Bank Dunia tercatat sebagai pembeli kredit karbon paling royal: nilai transaksi pada 2005 diestimasi mencapai 10 miliar dolar. Bagi beberapa ”pemain”, jual-beli karbon memang perkara citra. Sampai saat ini, kebanyakan pembeli karbon adalah firma yang relatif beremisi rendah, seperti bank-bank, yang berharap bisa menggaet klien yang memiliki visi lingkungan. Namun bagi pemain lain, bisnis karbon adalah business as usual yang menggiurkan.
Hitung-hitungan bisnisnya relatif sederhana. Setiap upaya penurunan emisi yang setara dengan satu ton karbon (tCO2e) akan diganjar satu CER (certified emission reduction). Sertifikat yang mirip surat berharga ini dikeluarkan oleh Badan Eksekutif CDM di bawah UNFCCC. Negara industri yang sudah meratifikasi Protokol Kyoto (disebut dengan kelompok Annex-1), atau lembaga nonpemerintah manapun yang merasa berkepentingan, bisa membeli CER ini dari proyek-proyek CDM di negara berkembang (non-Annex-1) yang tidak diwajibkan untuk mengurangi emisi.
Layaknya komoditas dagang, harga CER bisa bervariasi, tergantung kesepakatan pihak-pihak yang bertransaksi. Tapi, secara rerata, harga satu CER berkisar 5-15 dolar AS. Jadi, jika suatu proyek CDM berhasil memproyeksikan pengurangan emisi sebesar 1 juta ton CO2e dalam setahun, pendapatan kasar yang diperoleh proyek tersebut satu tahunnya sekitar 10 juta dolar AS (jika diambil harga tengah 10 juta dolar) dari penjualan CER.
Perlu diketahui, istilah ”reduksi emisi karbon” tidak serta-merta berarti pengurangan kadar karbon yang sudah ada saat ini di udara, tetapi merupakan upaya menekan bertambahnya emisi GRK akibat penggunaan bahan bakar fosil. Jadi, angka-angka tersebut pada dasarnya adalah jumlah karbon yang diemisikan jika tanpa proyek CDM.
Di satu sisi, solusi ini terkesan menyederhanakan masalah dan kental dengan unsur ketidakadilan: negara industri bebas mengotori atmosfer selama mampu membeli CER sebagai kompensasinya. Tapi di sisi lain, bisnis karbon membuka berbagai peluang: membangkitkan perekonomian negara dunia ketiga sekaligus menciptakan kondisi lingkungan yang relatif lebih baik. ”Ide besarnya adalah memberikan nilai moneter pada usaha perbaikan lingkungan. Selama ini, konservasi lingkungan dianggap sebagai cost, liabilitas. Tapi dengan adanya CDM, pengelolaan lingkungan juga berarti aset berharga,” kata Agus P. Sari, Direktur Regional Asia Tenggara EcoSecurities, salah satu pemain besar perdagangan karbon yang bermarkas di Oxford, Inggris.
SETELAH meratifikasi Protokol Kyoto melalui Undang-undang Nomor 17 tahun 2004, Indonesia membuka peluang ikut serta dalam arus perdagangan karbon. Sebagai fasilitator dan koordinator CDM di tingkat nasional, pemerintah membentuk Komisi Nasional Mekanisme Pembangunan Bersih (Komnas MPB) di bawah koordinasi Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup pada Juli 2005. Di setiap negara, komisi semacam juga ada dengan sebutan DNA (designated national authority).
”Setiap proyek CDM harus diverifikasi dan divalidasi oleh DNA di masing-masing negara,” ucap Prasetyadi Utomo dari Sekretariat Komnas MPB. Menurut pengakuannya, Komnas MPB sama sekali tidak menarik pungutan apapun dari proses verifikasi. Hal ini dibenarkan oleh Agus selaku pengembang proyek. ”Memang cukup ganjil, tapi begitulah kenyataannya,” ujarnya dengan nada seloroh.
Berdasarkan Kajian Strategis Nasional sektor Kehutanan dan Energi (KSNKE) yang dilakukan pada tahun 2001-2002, Indonesia memiliki potensi pengurangan emisi GRK sekitar 23-24 juta ton CO2e per tahun. Jika dikonversi ke nilai CER, potensinya menjadi 230 juta dolar AS dalam setahun (sekitar 2,3 triliun rupiah). Bukan jumlah yang kecil.
Khusus sektor kehutanan (nonenergi), catatan KSNKE menyebut ada sekitar 15 juta hektare lahan di seluruh daerah di Indonesia yang bisa diajukan untuk proyek CDM. Mengetahui fakta ini, akhir-akhir ini banyak pemerintah daerah yang mempromosikan hutan di daerahnya untuk dijadikan proyek CDM. Padahal, masalahnya ternyata tidak sesederhana itu.
“Potensi kebocoran (leakage) hutan Indonesia cukup besar,” kata Alue Dohong, penggiat lingkungan dari Wetlands International Indonesia Program. Dalam skema CDM, leakage tidak diperkenankan. Leakage, papar Alue, bisa disebabkan oleh belum mapannya tata kelola hutan, masih tingginya insiden kebakaran hutan, maraknya pembalakan liar, dan inkonsistensi kebijakan penataan ruang. “Belum jelasnya metode penentuan batas wilayah dan kriteria hutan yang memenuhi syarat juga menjadi batu sandungan untuk mengembangkan hutan kita sebagai proyek CDM,” imbuh Alue.
Hutan yang diperkenankan, misalnya, adalah hutan ”buatan” manusia (dengan pembenihan, penanaman, dan sebagainya) pada lahan yang belum pernah menjadi hutan sedikitnya 50 tahun ke belakang. ”Teknis penghitungan reduksi emisi karbon oleh hutan juga sulit, mengingat daya ikat karbon setiap pohon dalam suatu hutan heterogen berbeda-beda,” jelas Deddy Hadriyanto, pakar kehutanan dari Universitas Mulawarman, Kalimantan Timur. Kawasan mangrove justru lebih berpeluang dari sisi teknis.
Karenanya, hingga saat ini belum ada proyek CDM berbasis hutan dari Indonesia yang berhasil disetujui. Amat kontras dengan sektor energi alternatif yang lebih ”seksi”. Kabar terakhir, delapan proyek sudah teregistrasi di Badan Eksekutif CDM. Hampir semuanya berbasis energi.
Chevron Geothermal Indonesia (CGI), melalui proyek pembangkit listrik tenaga panas bumi Darajat Unit III adalah yang terakhir mendapat persetujuan, Desember tahun lalu, dengan kapasitas pembangkit sebesar 110 megawatt. Seperti diketahui, Indonesia merupakan negara dengan kandungan panas bumi amat besar, bahkan yang terbesar di dunia atau 40 persen dari cadangan panas bumi dunia. Menurut riset yang dilakukan oleh Direktorat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi, di seluruh kepulauan Indonesia sedikitnya ada 244 titik yang merupakan sumber panas bumi potensial, dengan kapasitas pembangkit sebesar 29.000 megawatt. Namun, hingga saat ini, jumlah total yang tereksplorasi hanya sekitar 1.000 megawatt, alias baru sekira lima persen. Sebagai perbandingan betapa efisiennya tenaga geotermal, 1.000 megawatt ekivalen geotermal untuk 30 tahun setara dengan 465 juta barel minyak bumi.
Menurut data CGI, emisi karbon dioksida dari pembangkit listrik tenaga panas bumi hanya sekitar sepersepuluh dari emisi yang diembuskan oleh pembangkit konvensional seperti batu bara, dan seperenam dari bahan bakar disel dan minyak. Selisih jumlah emisi inilah yang bisa dijadikan kredit karbon untuk diperjualbelikan.
Namun, bukan berarti sumber energi ini tidak memiliki kelemahan. Halangan utama eksplorasi panas bumi terletak pada besarnya biaya investasi, terutama jika dibandingkan dengan bahan bakar fosil. Komoditas ini juga tidak dapat diekspor seperti halnya minyak bumi. Selain itu, berbeda dengan minyak dan batu bara, mobilitas panas bumi juga rendah, tidak dapat berpindah-pindah dengan leluasa. Karena itu, pemanfaatannya mesti langsung dari sumber eksplorasi.
Proyek lain yang cukup menarik adalah pemanfaatan limbah hewan yang dilakukan oleh peternakan PT Indotirta Suaka Bulan di Riau dan Lampung Bekri Biogas. Suaka Bulan mengelola kotoran dari peternakan babi seluas 1.700 hektare di Pulau Bulan, Riau. Dengan teknik pencerna anaerobik (anaerobic digester), gas metana (CH4, salah satu GRK) yang ditangkap bisa dimanfaatkan untuk bahan bakar. Rata-rata, setiap tahunnya instalasi biogas ini diperkirakan dapat mengurangi emisi karbon sebesar 166.000 ribu ton CO2e.
Mirip dengan Suaka Bulan, Lampung Bekri menggunakan reaktor anaerobik bawah tanah tertutup (CIGAR) untuk menangkap gas metana dari kotoran sapi. Komposisi biogas yang diperoleh melalui proyek berskala kecil ini adalah 65% metana dan 35% CO2, dengan rata-rata reduksi emisi 18.826 ton CO2e per tahun. Produk kompor pun bisa dimanfaatkan untuk proyek CDM. Tetapi bukan sembarang kompor, tentunya. Alat masak yang diproduksi oleh PT Petromat Agrotech yang berkongsi dengan Klimaschutz e.V. dari Jerman ini menggunakan tenaga matahari sebagai sumber panasnya. Dengan begitu, penggunaan minyak tanah atau gas elpiji yang menghasilkan polusi karbon bisa ditekan. ”Kompor ini merupakan bagian dari usaha memperbaiki lingkungan, karena itu kami amat mendukungnya,” ucap Rudi Wahyudi dari Petromat Agrotech.
Berdiameter sekitar satu meter, bentuk kompor surya ini relatif sederhana, mirip sebuah parabola yang bagian permukaan cekungnya dilapisi bahan cermin yang bisa memantulkan cahaya. Dengan bentuk parabola, cahaya bisa dipantulkan terpusat ke sebuah penyangga wadah masak, sehingga menghasilkan panas yang cukup untuk memasak berbagai jenis makanan, mulai nasi goreng hingga sayur sup. Menurut rencana, akhir Februari, sekitar 1.000 unit kompor surya ini akan diserahkan secara cuma-cuma kepada para nelayan di Sabang, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.
Saat ini ada dua proyek lagi dari Indonesia yang masih mengantre untuk disetujui oleh Badan Eksekutif CDM. Bukan tidak mungkin jumlahnya akan terus bertambah. Hingga saat ini, beberapa proposal proyek juga terus diterima oleh Komnas MPB.
Kabar baik? Belum tentu. Yang perlu didesak adalah komitmen setiap pihak untuk melestarikan lingkungan, tidak peduli apakah ada atau tidak ada keuntungan finansial di belakangnya. Apalagi sekadar upaya menghapus dosa, seperti yang dikhawatirkan Martin Luther terhadap gereja Katolik lima abad silam
AS Bersikeras, Penutupan UNFCCC Bakal Molor
Sumber: Liputan 6 (SCTV), ditayangkan: 14.12.2007; 13:05
Liputan6.com, Nusa Dua: Konferensi Tingkat Tinggi tentang Perubahan Iklim (UNFCCC) di Nusa Dua, Bali, hari ini (14/12) akan berakhir. Namun beberapa jam menjelang penutupan, perdebatan alot masih terjadi. Salah satunya disebabkan sikap Amerika Serikat yang ingin mementahkan atau menghalangi beberapa kesepakatan [baca: REDD Disetujui, AS Belum Bersikap].
Reporter SCTV David Silahooij melaporkan, sejumlah isu yang masih alot itu menyangkut penurunan emisi dan dana kompensasi bagi negara-negara pemilik hutan tropis atau Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Menurut pihak AS, tiga persen saja emisi diturunkan, maka pendapatan domestik bruto negaranya bakal turun sekitar 4,1 persen. Sikap keras AS inilah yang kemungkinan membuat agenda hari penutupan KTT Perubahan Iklim menjadi molor.
Dilaporkan pula, Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dijadwalkan akan bertemu dengan senator AS Al Gore yang tak lain pemenang Nobel Perdamaian 2007 di Hotel Four Seasons, Nusa Dua, Bali. Seperti diberitakan, kemarin, mantan Wakil Presiden AS era pemerintahan Bill Clinton itu mendesak negaranya agar segera bertindak mengatasi dampak perubahan iklim [baca: Al Gore Kritik Kebijakan Bush].
Adapun dalam KTT Perubahan Iklim di Bali, pemerintah Indonesia mengusulkan agar negara-negara maju yang banyak mengotori lingkungan memberikan kompensasi dana. Dana ini diperuntukkan bagi negara-negara berkembang pemilik hutan tropis yang menyerap gas buangan. Di Indonesia, salah satu daerah pemilik wilayah hutan terbesar, terutama hutan gambut, adalah Kalimantan Tengah.
Belum lama ini SCTV mewawancarai Alue Dohong, aktivis Wetlands International. Alue menuturkan, belum lama berselang ia berkesempatan berkunjung ke Kalteng. Kunjungan ini buat mengetahui tanggapan pemerintah dan warga Kalteng tentang usulan dana kompensasi yang diusung pemerintah pusat.
Dari pedalaman Kalteng, Alue Dohong dan rekan-rekannya bekerja menyelamatkan bumi, yakni merehabilitasi lahan gambut. Lahan itu sepintas hanya terlihat sebagai tanah berwarna kehitam-hitaman dan terdiri dari tumpukan ranting yang telah terurai. Kalteng memiliki tiga juta hektare lebih lahan gambut, namun banyak yang sudah kering atau rusak.
Meski kegunaannya untuk bercocok tanam terbatas, lahan gambut sebenarnya mempunyai fungsi penting, terutama buat mengimbangi dampak pemanasan global. Potensi serapan karbon dioksida dari lahan gambut Kalteng diperkirakan sebesar enam miliar ton. Dengan harga jual minimal lima dolar AS di pasar karbon internasional, ini berarti potensi pemasukan besar bagi daerah dan negara. Lantaran itulah, Gubernur Kalteng Teras Narang menyayangkan kurang diikutsertakan pemerintah setempat dalam persiapan perundingan perubahan iklim di Bali.
Seperti halnya Indonesia, dinamika serupa antara pemerintah pusat dan daerah menyangkut regulasi hutan dan serapan karbon pun berlangsung di Brasil. Salah satu negara di Amerika Latin ini adalah pemilik hutan tropis terbesar di dunia. Menurut Duta Besar Brasil untuk Indonesia Edmundo Fujita, kebijakan terbaik haruslah yang berdampak positif dan langsung terhadap masyarakat. Terutama mereka yang bermukim di wilayah hutan.
Dalam perundingan Bali, baik Indonesia maupun Brasil setuju bahwa sudah saatnya negara-negara berkembang pemilik hutan tropis mendapat insentif dari negara-negara kaya. Ini mengingat hutan mereka mampu menyerap gas buangan industri besar.
Memang, banyak harapan tergantung pada perundingan di Bali. Namun kalaupun nanti tercapai konsensus, ada pertanyaan yang tersisa. Bagaimana memastikan hutan Indonesia tak sekadar menjadi bahan rebutan Jakarta dan daerah? Dengan demikian, menjadi satu kekayaan milik bersama.(ANS/Tim Liputan 6 SCTV)
Liputan6.com, Nusa Dua: Konferensi Tingkat Tinggi tentang Perubahan Iklim (UNFCCC) di Nusa Dua, Bali, hari ini (14/12) akan berakhir. Namun beberapa jam menjelang penutupan, perdebatan alot masih terjadi. Salah satunya disebabkan sikap Amerika Serikat yang ingin mementahkan atau menghalangi beberapa kesepakatan [baca: REDD Disetujui, AS Belum Bersikap].
Reporter SCTV David Silahooij melaporkan, sejumlah isu yang masih alot itu menyangkut penurunan emisi dan dana kompensasi bagi negara-negara pemilik hutan tropis atau Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Menurut pihak AS, tiga persen saja emisi diturunkan, maka pendapatan domestik bruto negaranya bakal turun sekitar 4,1 persen. Sikap keras AS inilah yang kemungkinan membuat agenda hari penutupan KTT Perubahan Iklim menjadi molor.
Dilaporkan pula, Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dijadwalkan akan bertemu dengan senator AS Al Gore yang tak lain pemenang Nobel Perdamaian 2007 di Hotel Four Seasons, Nusa Dua, Bali. Seperti diberitakan, kemarin, mantan Wakil Presiden AS era pemerintahan Bill Clinton itu mendesak negaranya agar segera bertindak mengatasi dampak perubahan iklim [baca: Al Gore Kritik Kebijakan Bush].
Adapun dalam KTT Perubahan Iklim di Bali, pemerintah Indonesia mengusulkan agar negara-negara maju yang banyak mengotori lingkungan memberikan kompensasi dana. Dana ini diperuntukkan bagi negara-negara berkembang pemilik hutan tropis yang menyerap gas buangan. Di Indonesia, salah satu daerah pemilik wilayah hutan terbesar, terutama hutan gambut, adalah Kalimantan Tengah.
Belum lama ini SCTV mewawancarai Alue Dohong, aktivis Wetlands International. Alue menuturkan, belum lama berselang ia berkesempatan berkunjung ke Kalteng. Kunjungan ini buat mengetahui tanggapan pemerintah dan warga Kalteng tentang usulan dana kompensasi yang diusung pemerintah pusat.
Dari pedalaman Kalteng, Alue Dohong dan rekan-rekannya bekerja menyelamatkan bumi, yakni merehabilitasi lahan gambut. Lahan itu sepintas hanya terlihat sebagai tanah berwarna kehitam-hitaman dan terdiri dari tumpukan ranting yang telah terurai. Kalteng memiliki tiga juta hektare lebih lahan gambut, namun banyak yang sudah kering atau rusak.
Meski kegunaannya untuk bercocok tanam terbatas, lahan gambut sebenarnya mempunyai fungsi penting, terutama buat mengimbangi dampak pemanasan global. Potensi serapan karbon dioksida dari lahan gambut Kalteng diperkirakan sebesar enam miliar ton. Dengan harga jual minimal lima dolar AS di pasar karbon internasional, ini berarti potensi pemasukan besar bagi daerah dan negara. Lantaran itulah, Gubernur Kalteng Teras Narang menyayangkan kurang diikutsertakan pemerintah setempat dalam persiapan perundingan perubahan iklim di Bali.
Seperti halnya Indonesia, dinamika serupa antara pemerintah pusat dan daerah menyangkut regulasi hutan dan serapan karbon pun berlangsung di Brasil. Salah satu negara di Amerika Latin ini adalah pemilik hutan tropis terbesar di dunia. Menurut Duta Besar Brasil untuk Indonesia Edmundo Fujita, kebijakan terbaik haruslah yang berdampak positif dan langsung terhadap masyarakat. Terutama mereka yang bermukim di wilayah hutan.
Dalam perundingan Bali, baik Indonesia maupun Brasil setuju bahwa sudah saatnya negara-negara berkembang pemilik hutan tropis mendapat insentif dari negara-negara kaya. Ini mengingat hutan mereka mampu menyerap gas buangan industri besar.
Memang, banyak harapan tergantung pada perundingan di Bali. Namun kalaupun nanti tercapai konsensus, ada pertanyaan yang tersisa. Bagaimana memastikan hutan Indonesia tak sekadar menjadi bahan rebutan Jakarta dan daerah? Dengan demikian, menjadi satu kekayaan milik bersama.(ANS/Tim Liputan 6 SCTV)
Jangan Bangun Kanal di Gambut
Sumber: Kalteng Pos, Selasa, 21 April 2009
PALANGKA RAYA – Upaya memperbaiki lahan gambut yang sudah rusak khususnya di kawasan eks pengembangan lahan gambut (PLG) tak cukup dengan penanaman pohon kembali atau reboisasi. Langkah lainnya yang juga penting adalah tak membangun parit atau kanal baru di kawasan tersebut.
“Kalau membuka parit atau kanal di lahan gambut, maka air yang ditahannya akan lepas. Akibatnya, gambut menjadi kering dan mudah terbakar. Kemudian, kanal yang sudah ada diupayakan ditutup atau ditabat sehingga masih bisa berfungsi menahan air,” ujar Direktur Wetland International Indonesia (WII) Kalimantan Tengah (Kalteng) Alue Dohong kepada Kapos, Senin (20/4) pagi.
Untuk kegiatan penanaman kembali, terangnya, perlu diperhatikan yang jenis endemik atau asal daerah. Misalnya, penanaman bibit pohon pulai, jelutung, dan belangiran. Dengan penanaman spesies endemik, maka tingkat tumbuhnya akan lebih cepat dibanding tanaman lain di luar ekosistem lahan gambut.
Pentingnya penabatan kanal dan tak membuat kanal baru di kawasan lahan gambut, kata Alue, dikarenakan upaya restorasi dan reboisasi selama ini tak berimbang dengan laju kerusakan tiap tahun. “Kalau mau fokus di eks PLG saja, penanaman tak sampai 10 persen untuk upaya restorasi. Sebab, hampir 70 persen diarahkan untuk konservasi,” tuturnya.
Menurut Alue Dohong, beberapa tindakan tersebut perlu dilakukan untuk menyelamatkan kawasan gambut dari laju kerusakan. Itu juga bermakna menyelamatkan bumi dari kerusakan lingkungan. Sebab, ucapnya, tingkat degradasi untuk lahan gambut di Indonesia setiap tahunnya rata-rata 5-10 persen. Utamanya di Riau, Sumatera Selatan, dan sedikit di wilayah Kalteng.
“Lahan gambut di Kalimantan Tengah sekitar 3,01 juta hektare (ha). Yang sudah rusak atau terdegradasi sekitar satu juta hektare di lahan eks PLG. Bila lahan gambut tak terdagradasi yang tersisa tak dijaga, maka akan turut memengaruhi iklim secara global,” tuturnya.
Direktur WII Kalteng mengutarakan, gambut yang kering akan mudah terbakar. Kebakaran menghasilkan gas karbondioksida (CO2). CO2 seperti diketahui merupakan salah satu gas rumah kaca yang merusak lapisan ozon (O3). Ozon yang terbuka menyebabkan pemanasan global dan perubahan iklim.
“Gas rumah kaca tak hanya disebabkan kebakaran, tetapi juga hal lainnya seperti industri dan emisi kendaraan bermotor,” imbuhnya.
Karena itu, kata Alue, tindakan nyata sehari-hari yang bisa dilakukan adalah menggunakan kendaraan bermotor yang tak melepas emisi berbahaya bagi lingkungan. Atau, tindakan lainnya seperti tersebut di atas.
“Jadi, pengendalian hidrologi sangat penting untuk menjaga kawasan gambut. Tentunya upaya tersebut dilakukan bersama-sama, tak hanya satu atau dua pihak,” pungkasnya. (def)
PALANGKA RAYA – Upaya memperbaiki lahan gambut yang sudah rusak khususnya di kawasan eks pengembangan lahan gambut (PLG) tak cukup dengan penanaman pohon kembali atau reboisasi. Langkah lainnya yang juga penting adalah tak membangun parit atau kanal baru di kawasan tersebut.
“Kalau membuka parit atau kanal di lahan gambut, maka air yang ditahannya akan lepas. Akibatnya, gambut menjadi kering dan mudah terbakar. Kemudian, kanal yang sudah ada diupayakan ditutup atau ditabat sehingga masih bisa berfungsi menahan air,” ujar Direktur Wetland International Indonesia (WII) Kalimantan Tengah (Kalteng) Alue Dohong kepada Kapos, Senin (20/4) pagi.
Untuk kegiatan penanaman kembali, terangnya, perlu diperhatikan yang jenis endemik atau asal daerah. Misalnya, penanaman bibit pohon pulai, jelutung, dan belangiran. Dengan penanaman spesies endemik, maka tingkat tumbuhnya akan lebih cepat dibanding tanaman lain di luar ekosistem lahan gambut.
Pentingnya penabatan kanal dan tak membuat kanal baru di kawasan lahan gambut, kata Alue, dikarenakan upaya restorasi dan reboisasi selama ini tak berimbang dengan laju kerusakan tiap tahun. “Kalau mau fokus di eks PLG saja, penanaman tak sampai 10 persen untuk upaya restorasi. Sebab, hampir 70 persen diarahkan untuk konservasi,” tuturnya.
Menurut Alue Dohong, beberapa tindakan tersebut perlu dilakukan untuk menyelamatkan kawasan gambut dari laju kerusakan. Itu juga bermakna menyelamatkan bumi dari kerusakan lingkungan. Sebab, ucapnya, tingkat degradasi untuk lahan gambut di Indonesia setiap tahunnya rata-rata 5-10 persen. Utamanya di Riau, Sumatera Selatan, dan sedikit di wilayah Kalteng.
“Lahan gambut di Kalimantan Tengah sekitar 3,01 juta hektare (ha). Yang sudah rusak atau terdegradasi sekitar satu juta hektare di lahan eks PLG. Bila lahan gambut tak terdagradasi yang tersisa tak dijaga, maka akan turut memengaruhi iklim secara global,” tuturnya.
Direktur WII Kalteng mengutarakan, gambut yang kering akan mudah terbakar. Kebakaran menghasilkan gas karbondioksida (CO2). CO2 seperti diketahui merupakan salah satu gas rumah kaca yang merusak lapisan ozon (O3). Ozon yang terbuka menyebabkan pemanasan global dan perubahan iklim.
“Gas rumah kaca tak hanya disebabkan kebakaran, tetapi juga hal lainnya seperti industri dan emisi kendaraan bermotor,” imbuhnya.
Karena itu, kata Alue, tindakan nyata sehari-hari yang bisa dilakukan adalah menggunakan kendaraan bermotor yang tak melepas emisi berbahaya bagi lingkungan. Atau, tindakan lainnya seperti tersebut di atas.
“Jadi, pengendalian hidrologi sangat penting untuk menjaga kawasan gambut. Tentunya upaya tersebut dilakukan bersama-sama, tak hanya satu atau dua pihak,” pungkasnya. (def)
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