Drivers of Tropical Peatland Degradation in South-East Asia

While recognising that the South-East Asia region holds the largest peatland area in the tropics, however, the region is also facing the most degraded peatland area globally.

Do you want to know more about the drivers of tropical peatland degradation in South-East Asia? There are many factors that contribute to the degradation of tropical peatland in the region. Those factors entail Direct and Indirect drivers. The direct drivers comprise logging, conversion to large-scale agriculture and/or industrial plantations, construction of artificial drainage canals, repeated fires,   poverty incidence, and traditional farming practices. Meanwhile, the Indirect factors consist of climate change, land use policy and governance.

Peatland degradation in the South-East Asia has imposed negative impacts to the quantity and quality of peat forest covers, increasing carbon emissions over time, and biodiversity loss as well as habitat fragmentation.

To know further details on the peatland degradation drivers and its associated impacts in South-East Asia region please read on the paper by Dohong, Alue et al., 2017.'A review of the drivers of tropical peatland  degradation in South-East Asia', published in Land Use Policy 69 (2017) 349-360 through the following access:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026483771730529X