INDONESIA: Bali will host a summit focusing on climate change while Indonesia's forests face rampant cutting and burning

Delegates from about 190 nations will meet in Bali, Indonesia from December 3 to 14 in a bid to try to launch two years of negotiations to work out a broader long-term pact to fight climate change. They will gather on Indonesian resort island to seek a successor to the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Indonesia's forests are a massive natural store of carbon, but environmentalists say rampant cutting and burning of trees to feed the pulp, timber and palm oil sectors has made the country the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. "When talking about climate polluting CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions everybody thinks of factories in Europe or power station in United States or the growing transport like China and India but what most people do not know is that this forest in Indonesia and other forest-heavy countries like Brazil or Congo, matter a lot. Actually twenty percent of annual CO2 emission worldwide are made from deforestation in these forest-heavy countries," said Christian Teriete, World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) Asia Pacific Communication Manager. For years, Indonesia has made money by chopping down its forests. Now it wants to earn billions by preserving what is left. The huge archipelago, with about 10 percent of the world's tropical rainforests, is pinning its hopes on next month's U.N. climate talks in Bali. The government is backing a scheme that aims to make emission cuts from forests eligible for carbon trading. Experts estimate Indonesia could earn more than 13 billion U.S. dollars by preserving its forests if the carbon trading plan gets support in Bali. Indonesia's forests, a treasure trove of plant and animal species including the threatened orangutan, emit a staggering 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and British development agency. Deforestation is estimated to contribute 20 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions -- more than all the emissions of the world's cars, trucks, trains and airplanes combined. Environmental groups say that protecting tropical forests is the most direct and fastest way to mitigate some of the impact of climate change. "If the Indonesian government together with help from developed countries doesn't manage to stop the logging, we run into really deep problems. Because if you clear all these forests and cut them down, we contribute so many CO2 emissions to the atmosphere that climate change will be out of control. And then you talk about heat waves, droughts, storms, floods, so major nature catastrophes that are not just heating Indonesia but many many places around the world in particular the poor countries that find the difficult to adapt against the climate change," said Teriete. Indonesia is one of the few countries that still has swathes of tropical rainforests left. Greenpeace said companies continue to burn vast areas of peat forests in Riau province for palm oil and pulp wood plantations despite a government ban, contributing to the annual haze that chokes the region. Indonesia is home to 60 percent of the world's threatened tropical peatlands, but its marshes are being destroyed at an unprecedented pace because of massive conversion into pulp wood and palm oil plantations to feed global demand for biofuel. "This forest was our source for living. We were fishing in the forest, and sourcing for the rattan in the forest. Now it's all gone, the river is polluted," said Samidi, a villager in Kuala Cinaku. He added that most of the residents would lose their jobs because of the land clearing. However, some companies have been exercising responsible environmental management. Riaupulp, a subsidiary of Asia Pacific International Resources Holdings Ltd (APRIL) - one of the country's major pulp and paper producers- followed the forestry conservation rules which allow them to cut the trees to feed their factory--but they have to replant the area with the same amount of trees they have cut. "We are managing our plantations to protect the natural forest. And know the landscape we protect about two hundred thousands hectare today of the natural forest and its our commitment to see that two hundred thousands hectares of natural forest stays and remains as protected forest for the future generation" said Jouko Virtue, APRIL Head of Global Fiber Supply Division. Indonesia has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres (91 million hectares), or about 10 procreant of the world's remaining tropical forest, according to rainforestweb.org. But the tropical country has already lost an estimated 72 percent of its original frontier forest.

ITN Source | December 4, 2007

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