My Name Is Peatlands

Please allow me to introduce myself my name is tropical peatlands. People call me peatlands since I normally cover land (mineral, clay or sand) with my peat soil and I usually occur in the waterlogged situation. In tropical climate regime, I mostly contain organic matters that come from death stems, tree branches, tree roots, leaves and etc and is usually accumulated gradually, but very slow for hundred and even thousand years result from very slow decomposition processes due to my water is very acid and oxygen is limited or even absent. High acidity and limited oxygen result in just very few composer bacterials can survive in my system. My peat soil is commonly existed and accumulated in between two rivers systems and trapping behind these two rivers's levee. When move further away from behind the river bank I gradually become deeper and thicker and establish a peat dome in the centre part of the system. My dome is generally characterized by very poor nutrients as its mostly receives nutrient supply only from rainfalls and the vegetation species is become fewer and their diameters are getting smaller? Why these vegetations  are become fewer and smaller? The answer is because nutrient competition is high and each species receive less nutrient uptake and therefore their growths are slower. It should be noted, however, my dome is played extremely important as hydrological unit that control and regulate hydrological of my whole system. My dome keeps excess water during the rainy season and release back this excess slowly to my system during the dry season. That why if my ecosystem is in pristine condition and no viable perturbations, there would be less floods and drought issues. Although, I recognize as marginal and infertile land, however, many endemic and rare plants species are used my ecosystem as their lovely homes and those plants relied their survive and sustainability with my existence and sustainability too. Hence, if my ecosystem is under threat, thus, endemic and rare plants will also facing blur future. In addition, my ecosystem is also favourbake and sweet homes for many endemic and charismatic fauna, avifauna and mammals such Orang Utan (Pongopygmous), Proboscys monkey, long-tail monkey, sun bear, wild board, king fisher fish, eagle, duck, etc. My plants and other materials provide foods and materials for those to survive and sustain their life. Hence, if my ecosystem is under threat, those precious biodiversity will also under jeopardy. My ecosystem provides range of values and services to both human and non-human creatures in terms ecological, socio-economic and socio-cultural. My service to regulate water and climate, for example, is played important role to control floods and drought as well as to mitigate climate change issue through my role in sequester and sink carbon dioxide in my peat soil and vegetation. As most (60-80%) of my soil structure is contained organic matters (carbon), I play important function to sink and hold carbon from released to the atmosphere, thus, I provide service to ease climate change impacts at local up to global. In addition, I also provide services to satisfy human needs such as through supplying water, lumber, meat protein, medical plants etc that are very important for human to sustain their life in this universe. Without my services above, I assume that both human and non-human livings will also facing problems to survive and sustain their existence. Finally, I also serve services in terms of socio-culture to human such as my ecosystem can be ecotourism object that satisfies human enjoyment and pleasure. My ecosystem also can act as source for pursuing and invention of new knowledge and science that benefited both for human, non-human and scientific development itself. Considering my vital and strategic values and services as aforementioned, hence, it is sensibly enough for human to protect and maintain my ecosystem not only for the seek of to sustain my values and services, but also to sustain human existence too. These days, however, my ecosystem is under threat and destruction result from unsustainable and unwise economic development policies and anthropogenic activities. In Indonesia, for instance, as a home for about 80% tropical peatlands, I experience destruction overtime due to conversion to other land uses, drainage and fires. More than 1.5 million hectares of my ecosystem have been converted for agriculture fields and oil plan plantations in Central Kalimantan itself, and this figure is not included similar conversion in other region such as in Sumatera and Papua.  Removal of my valuable vegetations such as Ramin (Gonystylus), Meranti (Shorea), Belangiran (Shorea belangiran),etc for log production has created devastated negative impacts and changed my vegetation structure and composition, and at the end created disruption over whole my ecosystem. Construction of massive drainage networks in association with logging activities has disturbed my hydrological functions and services that leads to further degradation result from subsidence and irreversible drying of my peat soil. This disturbance at the end will severe the local, regional and global climate change due to substantial CO2 emissions released as consequences of this subsidence and peat drying.  Conversion to oil palm plantation and other tree plantation subsequent to logging activities has even devastated negative impacts to my ecosystem. Removal of whole vegetations  and replace this with completely single and invasive species such as oil palm or eucalyptus has disturbed and disrupted properties of my hydro-ecological and vegetation structure, hence, this will lead to the disturbance and degradation of my ecosystem. As to establish an oil palm plantation on my peat soil, there is a necessary to lower my water table to certain level that enable palm oil to growth and produce good yield. So as to achieve this goal, therefore, drainage network is required in order to control and manage my water at desired levels. Lowering my water table,  thus, will facilitate the subsidence and drying out my peat soil that at the end will destroy my whole ecosystem.  Following the removal and drainage activities, my ecosystem is normally susceptible to repeated fires as degraded peat is commonly acted as source of fire fuels notably during the dry season. Peat fires have major impacts to the climate change as it releases substantial CO2 emission result from peat combustion and burning vegetation. And thus, peat fires are absolutely one of the major contributors of the climate change issues. In addition, peat fires are very difficult to deal with as it commonly occurs beneath the peat surface (underground fire), thus, huge water source is required to put it out, whereas water source availability is major problem during the dry periods. Considering my future and treats that I am facing overtime, I call for the implementation of wise use and responsible peatland management needs to put in place. Without, adequate wise use and responsible measures, I do believe that my ecosystem will be come part of bad story side of human existence in this universe. Policy and regulation, market-based and voluntary measures that are favorable toward my protection, conservation and wise use are now needed to be discussed thoroughly by stakeholders to ensure both existence myself and human & non-human in the planet. Save me now or lost your humanity story.