Indonesia gets its own climate change camp

Posted by jamie — 24 October 2007 at 1:42pm - Comments

The Forest Defenders Camp in Sumatra, Indonesia

Climate change and deforestation are inextricably linked. Forest destruction contributes around one-fifth of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire global transport sector, and the problem is so severe that Indonesia and Brazil are ranked third and fourth respectively in the list of top emitting countries, mainly because of deforestation.

It's against this background that our latest Forest Defenders Camp opened a couple of weeks ago on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located on the frontline where the peatland forest is being cleared for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is used in hundreds of food and cosmetic products, as well as biofuels.


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There are two reasons Indonesia was picked for this project. First, the forests of South East Asia are being destroyed faster than anywhere else on the planet. Industrial logging plus the expansion of the palm oil industry and the pulp and paper sector are to blame, which affects not only the people who live there and the biodiversity that the forest supports, but also the global climate. Both the forest itself and the thick layers of peat lying beneath it store millions of tonnes of carbon. The peat is cleared and drained to make the land suitable for palm oil plantations and, of course, this releases vast quantities of greenhouse gases.

The second reason is that in December Indonesia will play host to the United Nations Climate Change conference, the next round of international climate talks that will begin negotiations on an extension to the Kyoto Protocol. Strong measures to prevent deforestation have to be included as an essential part of any international climate change agreements, and the forest camp is the first stage in our plan to ensure that happens. As the Stern Review noted almost a year ago, "curbing deforestation is a highly cost-effective way to reduce emissions."

As with previous camps, volunteers will be bearing witness to the destruction and taking steps to prevent it. Their plans include spotting and tackling forest fires, analysing the depth of the peat underneath the forest, and conducting a comprehensive assessment of biodiversity in the area.

We'll be bringing you more about the camp, the road to Bali and palm oil in the coming weeks and months, and exploring in more depth the relationship between forests and the climate. Indonesia might seem very far away but, as with the Amazon and the Congo, the impacts of deforestation there reverberate around the world.

About Jamie

I'm a forests campaigner working mainly on Indonesia. My personal mumblings can be found @shrinkydinky.

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