Jakarta – The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) revealed that Indonesia’s total peatland area is 13.4 million hectares (ha), equivalent to 80 percent of the total peatland in Southeast Asia, storing 14 percent of global peat carbon. Peatlands are an important ecosystem for biodiversity, as well as an effective solution in mitigating climate change.
Head of the Center for Environmental Research and Clean Technology at BRIN, Sasa Sofyan Munawar, conveyed this fact in a webinar with Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN) with the theme From Science to Policy: Tropical Peatlands as a Key Role in Mitigating Climate Change.
The webinar was held to commemorate World Biodiversity Day 2023 on May 22. This presentation is also part of disseminating the study’s results on the potential of tropical peat in climate change mitigation efforts carried out by BRIN and YKAN together with other partners.
Munawar said in a written release that peat protection and restoration contribute to national climate targets and climate change mitigation, adding that “peatlands have a significant contribution in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and are home to high biodiversity”.
On the same occasion, a researcher at BRIN’s Research Center for Ecology and Ethnobiology (PREE), Haruni Krisnawati, explained that peatlands are unique and rare ecosystems. “Although it only covers about three to four percent of the planet’s land surface, it contains up to one-third or 30-40 percent of the world’s soil carbon. That’s twice the amount of carbon in the world’s forests,” she explained.
Krisnawati said preserving peatland ecosystems is critical to achieving global climate goals, even though about 12 percent of peatlands are currently dry and degraded.
Preservation of remaining peatland ecosystems currently contributes to 5 percent of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. (Hartatik)
