Asap Berhembus hingga Negeri Kanguru

Sumber berita dibambil dari:
http://pmlseaepaper.pressmart.com/mediaindonesia/PUBLICATIONS/MI/MI/2015/09/30/ArticleHtmls/Asap-Berhembus-hingga-ke-Negeri-Kanguru-30092015012007.shtml?Mode=1

Pemerintah Didesak Perbanyak Bangun Sumur Bor

Sumber diambil dari:
http://www.tribunnews.com/nasional/2015/09/29/pemerintah-didesak-perbanyak-bangun-sumur-bor

Selasa, 29 September 2015 18:16 WIB

TRIBUNNEWS.COM, JAKARTA - Pemerintah didesak memperbanyak membangun sumur bor dalam (deep well) di lokasi kebakaran lahan yang saat ini semakin parah kondisinya.

Demikian disarankan Pengamat lingkungan Alue Dohong dalam keterangan tertulisnya kepada Tribun, Selasa (29/9/2015).

Selain berbiaya murah, kata Pengamat lingkungan ini, pembuatan sumur bor ini bisa mempercepat upaya pemadaman lahan gambut yang sedang terbakar.

Menurut keterangannya, pembuatan satu sumur bor paling mahal hanya Rp5 juta dan itu bisa membasahi lahan hingga luasan 5 hektar.

Lebih lanjut ungkap Alue, pengerjaan sumur dalam ini tidak memerlukan waktu yang lama. Yaitu, hanya sekitar 3-4 jam per unit sumur pipa.

Masyarakat lokal pun, tambahnya, juga bisa dilibatkan dalam pembuatan sumur dalam ini karena memang mereka paham bagaimana memadamkan api di lahan gambut.

"Ini kan teknik tradisional yang sudah dilakukan leluhur kita sejak lama. Kalau pun butuh teknologi GPS, itu hanya digunakan untuk mencari sumber air yang lebih dekat di lahan gambut tersebut," paparnya.

Selain bisa cepat memadamkan api dan mengurangi volume asap, teknik deep well ini bisa mengatasi problem kebakaran lahan untuk jangka panjang.

Apalagi, ungkapnya, problem utama dalam memadamkan kebakaran lahan selama ini yaitu kurangnya sumber air di sekitar permukaan lahan gambut.

"Deep well yang sudah dibangun bisa dibuat permanen dan diambil titik koordinatnya serta dipetakan untuk diketahui lokasinya. Nah ini akan jadi sumber air untuk pemadaman kebakaran di masa mendatang," katanya.

Pada kesempatan itu Alue menyebutkan, untuk jangka panjang pemerintah harus bisa melakukan restorasi terhadap lahan gambut yang luasannya mencapai 21 juta hektar tersebut.

Selain itu, pemerintah seharusnya lebih hati-hati dalam mengeluarkan izin pengelolaan lahan gambut ini.

"Sebab berdasarkan penelitian, 50% dari seluruh luasan gambut di Indonesia sudah terdegradasi akibat penebangan hutan maupun konversi lahan perkebunan," ungkapnya.

Dia juga menilai langkah pemerintah menggunakan heli untuk memadamkan api di lahan gambut kawasan Sumatera dan Kalimantan sangat tidak efektif.

selain mahal karena sewanya mencapai miliaran rupiah, menurut Alue yang juga mahasiswa doktoral manajemen lingkungan di University of Queensland (UQ) katakan, pengeboman lahan dengan menggunakan air tidak sepenuhnya bisa membasahi lahan gambut yang sedang terbakar.

"Apalagi operasi pemadaman dengan heli atau pesawat pengebom air tidak selalu bisa dilaksanakan apabila saat asap sedang pekat dan jarak pandang (visibility) yang tidak memadai," jelasnya, dalam keterangan pers usai diskusi Indonesian Scholars Forum yang diadakan mahasiswa pascasarjana asal Indonesia di Brisbane, Australia.

Selain itu juga pamadaman dengan helikopter atau pesawat tidak akan efektif apabila tidak mampu membanjiri kawasan yang dipadamkan. "Sebaliknya justru akan memperparah kabut asap," ujarnya.

Late Post: Upacara Menanam Pokok

Sumber: Gurindam12.co
http://gurindam12.co/2011/03/01/upacara-menanam-pokok/

Published on March 1st, 2011 | by Tim Redaksi

Kuala Selangor | Gurindam12.co -  Bersempena dengan Peringatan Hari Tanah Lembap Sedunia 2011 (World Wetlands Day 2011 Celebration) yang ke 40, Jabatan Perhutanan Negeri Selangor Malaysia (Selangor Forestry Department), Exco Pelancongan Hal Ehwal Pengguna dan Alam Sekitar Negeri Selangor bekerja sama dengan Global Environment Centre (GEC) melakukan penananam pokok (penghijaun) di Hutan Simpan Raja Musa (Raja Musa Forest Reserve) Negeri Kuala Selangor Malaysia pada Sabtu (26/02) yang lalu.

World wetlands days celebration sebenarnya diperingati pada 2 Februari pada setiap tahunnya, namun kegiatan peringatan yang ditandai dengan penghijauan sebanyak 800 pohon yang terdiri dari jenis mahang dan tengkek burung dilakukan pada sabtu (26/02) karena juga merupakan salah satu rangkaian acara dari kegiatan Training Programme on Peatland and Assessment Management Training on Trainers (TOT) yang diselenggarakan oleh ASEAN Peatland Forest Programme (APFP), SEApeat Project, Global Environment Centre (GEC), Selangor Department Forestry dan didukung oleh European Union (EU) Commission yang dihadiri oleh beberapa negera seperti Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapura, Myanmar dan Filipina yang dilaksanakan pada 22-26 February 2011 di Hotel De Palma Kuala Selangor.

Hadir dalam kegiatan penghijauan ini delegasi dari Indonesia berjumlah 5 orang yang terdiri dari Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup (KLH) Republik Indonesia, Bpk Huda Achsani mengatakan kegiatan seperti ini sangat baik karena dapat menggugah kesadaran banyak orang terhadap pentingnya menjaga lingkungan. Selain itu Bpk Alue Dohong yang menjadi perwakilan Wetlands International Indonesia Programme juga mempunyai pandangan yang sama dan beliau juga berharap apa yang saya tanam di sini (Malaysia) dapat menjadi sebuah arti penting dengan harapan semoga pokok yang saya tanam dapat bertahan dan berkembang dengan baik. Selain itu hadir juga perwakilan dari Badan Lingkungan Hidup (BLH) Propinsi Riau, Bpk Ali Teddy dan Yayasan Mitra Insani Riau, Zainuri hasyim dan Hisam Setiawan yang turut serta dalam acara penghijauan tersebut.

Kegiatan penghijauan ini dibuka secara resmi oleh Elizabeth Wong yang juga merupakan Exco Pelancongan Negeri Selangor yang dalam kata sambutannya mengucapkan banyak terima kasih kepada seluruh participant yang turut serta dalam kegiatan penanaman pokok ini. Penghijauan ini melibatkan 300 orang yang berasal dari beragam organisasi. Selain peserta TOT yang dilaksanakan oleh APFP turut serta juga murid sekolah, mahasiswa, NGO, perusahaan dan pegawai pemerintahan serta dari lembaga Eco Warriors Malaysia yang fokus terhadap kegiatan penghijuan.

- See more at: http://gurindam12.co/2011/03/01/upacara-menanam-pokok/#sthash.kGflFdv3.dpuf

Late Post: Peat bog destruction highlights major flaw in Kyoto Protocol

Source: South China Morning Post/http://www.scmp.com/article/605666/peat-bog-destruction-highlights-major-flaw-kyoto-protocol

by Thomas Bell/UBLISHED : Monday, 27 August, 2007, 12:00am

UPDATED : Monday, 27 August, 2007, 12:00am

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.

Late Post: Smoke shrouds green scheme

Source Taken from: The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/smoke-shrouds-green-scheme/story-e6frg6t6-1111114949523?nk=66444083453899fe3bcfe0611d2c79b1

• JAKARTA CORRESPONDENT STEPHEN FITZPATRICK
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• NOVEMBER 24, 2007 12:00AM

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."

Late Posts: AS Bersikeras, Penutupan UNFCCC Bakal Molor

Sumber: http://news.liputan6.com/read/152141/as-bersikeras-penutupan-unfccc-bakal-molor

Date: Des 14, 2007 at 13:05 WIB

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)

KTT Perubahan Iklim (UNFCCC) di Nusa Dua, Bali, hari ini akan berakhir. Namun beberapa jam menjelang penutupan, perdebatan alot masih terjadi. Salah satunya disebabkan sikap AS yang ingin mementahkan atau menghalangi beberapa kesepakatan.

Source:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/10/24/your-letters-peatland-management-failures.html

The Jakarta Post | Readers Forum | Fri, October 24 2014, 12:00 PM

Your letters: Peatland
management failures

We are now just realizing the big economic, social and ecological costs that we have to bear as a consequence of our government’s inability to manage our peatland ecosystem in a sustainable and wise manner. Scientific communities have been telling policymakers for years that precautionary measures needed to be taken to better manage the peatland ecosystem. 

In spite of advice and warnings, however, the government has continued to give out licenses that permit the conversion of peatland for other use, notably for the large--scale activities of oil palm and industrial timber plantations. Has our government compared how much economic gain has been generated from peatland conversions as opposed to the economic, social and ecological costs incurred as a result of peat fires and peat degradation? I am pretty sure that our government has never considered or recognized the socioeconomic- ecological value of peatland to our country and communities. 

I reckon that the current peat fires disaster is what it will take for all stakeholders, particularly the government, to review existing national and local regulations on peatland management so as to avoid recurrent issues from happening again in the coming years. Therefore, the following suggestions need to be considered with respect to improving the country’s peatland management. 

It is necessary to review and strengthen existing regulatory and policy regulations on peatland conservation, protection and utilization by revising criteria not only on the basis of peat depth criteria (currently a 3-meter regulatory threshold), but should be on the basis of economic, social and ecological values and services that peatland provides our country, communities and ecosystem. 

Stakeholders should prioritize the restoration of existing degraded peatland areas so as to improve the socioeconomic and ecological functions and value of those degraded peatland areas. Restorative measures and strategies such as water management (peat rewetting through canal-and ditch-blocking activities), vegetation management (maintaining natural regeneration, tree planting, seedling transplanting),  fire management (preventive and suppressive methods) and socioeconomic intervention (sustainable livelihood development) need to be simultaneously and integrally carried out.

National and local land-use policies need to be adjusted and strengthened by promoting and allowing land swaps to shift cultivation and production activities from peatland to non-peatland areas, including land swaps between other non-forestland for other purposes. 

Awareness raising and education programs for stakeholders need to be planned and implemented so as to raise common understanding and awareness about the importance of implementing sustainable and wise-use principles when managing the peatland ecosystem. Those stakeholders are government policymakers, politicians, the private sector and communities.

The central and local governments need to allocate adequate resources to improve and update its existing peatland database. It is a pity to learn that as the largest contributor in terms of total area and peat carbon biomass in the tropics (over 40 percent and 65 percent of total global tropical peatland area and peat carbon biomass respectively), Indonesia has failed to use its peatland resources potency as a means to gain a better bargaining position at global UNFCCC negotiation battles due to, among other things, the lack of an reliable peatland database.

Alue Dohong
Central Kalimantan

My letter to the Jakarta Post: Recurrent peat and forest fires

Source: The Jakarta Post, Friday, October 17, 2014

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/10/17/your-letters-recurrent-peat-and-forest-fires.html

Your letters: Recurrent
peat and forest fires 

| Readers Forum | Fri, October 17 2014, 9:41 AM

The many years of recurrent peat fires in this country have not provided a lesson to stakeholders, most notably the government. 

The government seems very keen to employ reactive and inappropriate suppressive measures when dealing with peat fires in many areas in Indonesia. Many of these suppressive measures have proven costly and waste time, with disappointing results on the ground. 

The procurement and mobilization of firefighting equipment is useless and will not effectively suppress fires on peatland areas that are well known for their remoteness and inaccessibility. 

Such equipment will yield no results when fires occur in the interior peat forest areas where road access and water sources are not sufficiently available. 

Mobile suppressive measures will only put out peat fires if certain conditions are met, for instance, adequate road access for heavy equipment, sufficient surface water sources for suppression on the ground, as well as ready and skillful fire brigades. 

Unless those conditions are met, the procured equipment will not work effectively on the field.

Therefore, rather than focusing too much on suppression strategies, it would be worthwhile for the government to think of ways to prevent fires, for instance by promoting peat rewetting programs throughout the country by blocking open canals within degraded peats so as to maintain and elevate groundwater and surface water tables during the dry period.

The government needs to implement a land swap policy by moving out all fire-based economic activities in peatland areas to other type of lands (mineral soil); enforcing existing law firmly on those who start fires and raising awareness among all stakeholders on the importance of protecting the peat swamp ecosystem and its likely negative impacts if managed improperly (haze-related problems, economic, health and other social 
costs that we should bear if we neglect sustainable peatland management principles).

Alue Dohong
Central Kalimantan

Handling Peat Fires: New Strategy and Approach Needed

We are now realizing how big the economic, social and ecological costs that we have to bear as a consequence of our government's incapability to manage our peatland ecosystem in sustainable and wise manners. it has been many years the scientific communities advise and sending warnings to policy makers at all governmental levels that precautionary principles need to be put in place when dealing with and managing peatland ecosystem. Despite these advice and warning, however, governmental decision makers keep continuously giving out licenses for allowing peatland to be converted to other land uses notably for large scale activities of oil palm and industrial timber plantations aim at of making economic profits. Has our government been calculated how much economic profit that we have generated from those converting peatland activities compared to economic, social and ecological costs that we have paid due to peat fires and peat degradation? I am pretty sure say that our government has never considered and recognised the socio-economic-ecological values that peatland serves to our country and communities prior the peat conversion decision is made.

I reckon current peat fires disaster is the right momentum for whole stakeholders particularly government to review its all existing national and local regulatory and practices measures on peatland management so as to avoid recurrent issues happened again and again in many years to come. Therefore, the following suggestions need to be considered with respect to improving the country's peatland management in the future.

1. There is a necessary to review and strengthen existing regulatory and policy measures on peatland conservation, protection and utilisation by revising criteria not only on the basis of peat depth criteria (currently 3 meters regulatory threshold), but should be on the basis of economic, social and ecological values and services that peatland provides to our country, communities and ecosystem;
2. Massive restoration efforts need to be prioritised by whole stakeholders to restore existing degraded peatland areas so as to improve the socio-economic and ecological functions and values of those degraded peatland areas. Restorative measures and strategies such as water management (peat rewetting through canal & ditch blocking activities), vegetation management (maintaining natural regeneration, tree planting, seedling transplanting),  fires management (preventive and suppressive methods) and socio-economic interventions (sustainable livelihoods development) need to be simultaneously and integrally implemented.
3. National and local land use policies need to be adjusted and strengthen by promoting and allowing land swaps mechanisms for shifting out cultivation and production activities from peatland to non-peatland areas including land swaps between other non-forestland for other purpose (APL) with tree covers and forestland category with no tree covers in the national and local spatial policy (national and local spatial plans);
4. Massive awareness raising and education programs for stakeholders need to be planned and implemented so as to raise common understanding and awareness about the importance of implementing sustainable and wise use principles when managing peatland ecosystem. Those stakeholders include government policy makers, politicians, private sector and communities
5. Both National and local governments need to allocate adequate resources to improve and update its existing peatland database. It is pity to learn that as the largest contributor in terms of total area and peat carbon biomass in the tropics (over 40% and 65% of the total global tropical peatland area and peat carbon biomass respectively), Indonesia is failed to use its peatland resources potency as means to gain better bargaining position at global UNFCCC negotiation battles due to among others lack of and unreliable peatland database.

That's all my thoughts and hopefully we can move towards a better management approach in managing our peatland resources in the future with the presence of our new national government.

Note: This is article is taken from my comment to an article entitled: "Prolonged Haze Disrupts Flights, Schools', at the Jakarta Post (Monday, October 13, 2014)

Stop­ping Fires with canal block­ing

• The Jakarta Post, Indonesia
 
• 8 Sep 2014
 
• 6

I re­fer to an ar­ti­cle ti­tled “Canal block­ing: One so­lu­tion to stop peat fires, ( The Jakarta Post, Sept. 1) by Warief Dja­janto Ba­sorie.

We did this canal block­ing ex­per­i­ment to re-wet de­graded peat­lands in a ex-mega rice project in Cen­tral Kal­i­man­tan in 20042007. It was con­sid­ered the first ever canal block­ing ex­per­i­ment in the trop­i­cal peat­lands.

We con­structed a num­ber of wooden-based struc­ture dams filled with min­eral soil bags be­tween the cham­bers of the dams. This had two ma­jor func­tions.

First, min­eral soil bags would strengthen dam tim­ber struc­ture to min­i­mize dam­age to dam struc­ture in re­sponse to strong wa­ter pres­sure and a high wa­ter debit. Se­cond, the min­eral soil bags were plant­ing me­dia for aquatic plants to cre­ate a nat­u­ral dam mea­sure once the wooden struc­tures eroded or de­com­posed with age.

Our canal block­ing in the ex-mega rice project was not a sim­plejob, but it used sim­ple tech­nol­ogy.We adopted lo­cal Dayak dam tech­nol­ogy called “tabat” and we con­structed a few big dams man­u­allywith lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties to block

the main canals (32 me­ters inwidth) and pri­mary canals (10-15m in width).

We planted se­lected aquatic plants such pe­rupuk, Shorea Be­lan­gi­ran and pan­danus on top of the min­eral soil bags, af­ter the dam struc­ture and soil bags sta­bi­lized (8-12 months af­ter the dam was com­pleted).

Apart from plant­ing aquatic plants on top of the con­structed dams, we also planted 10,000s of in­dige­nous peat swamp trees along the blocked canals. They are grow­ing very well up to the present.

Our con­structed dams are func­tion­ing well, main­tain­ing sur­face and ground wa­ter ta­bles along the blocked canals and also pre­vent­ing fires with the blocked ar­eas.

In Jan­uary this year, I vis­ited our canal block­ing site and wasproud to see that our dams were still func­tion­ing and had already become nat­u­ral dams, as the aquatic plants we planted had grown well and were now act­ingas nat­u­ral dams. Some trees planted along the canal bankshave di­am­e­ters of be­tween 20-30cen­time­ters and oth­ers are taller

Our canal block­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have been very suc­cess­ful and I have tried for many years to con­vince re­lated stake­hold­ers (gov­ern­ments, donors, and so on) to adopt and repli­cate our canal block­ing ex­per­i­ment to ad­dress peat prob­lems in In­done­sia. How­ever, I al­ways re­ceive a lack of se­ri­ous re­sponses from these par­ties and my dis­ap­point­ment with this con­tin­ues.

Alue Do­hong Palangka Raya

than seven me­ters.

Our canal block­ing ac­tiv­i­ties have been very suc­cess­ful and I have tried for many years to con­vince re­lated stake­hold­ers (gov­ern­ments, donors, and so on) to adopt and repli­cate our canal block­ing ex­per­i­ment to ad­dress peat prob­lems in In­done­sia. How­ever, I al­ways re­ceive a lack of se­ri­ous re­sponses from these par­ties and my dis­ap­point­ment with this con­tin­ues.

Alue Do­hong Palangka Raya