The climate defender camp on Sumatra's Kampar peninsula swung into action last week.
First up, activists got on with damming drainage canals which cut through the fragile peatland. As I said in the last post, drainage canals are the first part of the process for clearing the peatland to create, for example, palm oil plantations.
That clearing involves drying out the peat and then burning off the remnanants of the already-destroyed rainforest. Both of these processes destroy the fragile landscape, and release the carbon stored in the peat and forest into the atmosphere.
Visiting the camp is Kofi Annan's new climate justice ambassador Melanie Laurent. (Of course, she isn't just a climate justice ambassador, she's also from t'movies. Specifically from Quentin Tarantino's latest opus, Inglourious Basterds, no jokes about the spelling please.) She's been helping with the building of the dams, meeting local communities, and observing the wildlife (orangutans) which is threatened by the rainforest clearance. We'll have some pictures tomorrow.
I find it difficult to get my head around the desolation that you can see in the video - that ruined landscape they're walking through used to be pristine rainforest. And that's not just because I like rainforests, but because that twisted landscape clearly isn't nurturing and supporting anything - people, animals, or climate.
