Action Alert: Southeast Asia's Burning Rainforests and Peatland Threaten World's ClimateLet Kyoto protocol delegates know you demand immediate action to stop rainforest fires and peatland agricultural conversion
By Climate Ark, a project of Ecological Internet
On November 6th governments from all over the world will be meeting in Nairobi for the second meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP 2) and the 12th Conference of Parties to the Climate Change Convention (COP 12) - the year's most important United Nations climate change talks. To date international policy discussions have largely ignored the destruction and burning of Southeast Asia’s rainforest peatlands. These wet, swampy rainforests are drained to be cleared for agricultural plantations, and as they dry their peat filled soils are highly susceptible to long burning, carbon and methane rich fires. Peatland fires have for years been one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions - accounting for the equivalent of some 15% of all global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Hundreds of peat and forest fires are once again burning across Borneo, Sumatra and Java. Unless the international community acts quickly, Southeast Asia’s emissions of carbon and methane from burning peatlands alone may lead to dangerous climate change including massive sea level rises and mass extinctions.
Expansion of oil palm plantations, illegal logging and timber plantations have been identified as the main drivers of the destruction. Peat drainage and fires are likely to accelerate further as Indonesia and Malaysia are vastly expanding the area of land in oil palm plantations, partly to meet soaring demands for biofuels. The Kyoto Protocol not only fails to address the crisis, it is being implemented in a way which makes it even worse. Large amounts of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon credits are going to the palm oil industry, to the biofuel industry which uses this palm oil, and into timber plantations. Meanwhile member states - particularly in Europe - are trying to meet some of their Kyoto commitments by burning Southeast Asian palm oil as bioenergy.
Yet it is not too late to save and restore these vital rainforest peatland carbon stores. Remaining untouched peatlands must be protected from drainage and fires, and drained peat can be re-flooded and restored. At the Nairobi Conference, governments must address the crisis in Southeast Asia’s peatlands and forests as a top priority. Members must immediately make funding and technical assistance available to control the fires burning right now. A working group must urgently be established to draw up an international proposal to protect the remainder of Southeast Asia’s peatlands and to fund and ensure the restoration of the degraded peat. Those proposals must be developed together with local communities and NGOs, and any policies must take account of the needs of the local population. Carbon credits for the industries which cause peat drainage, fires and deforestation must be suspended at once, and member states must stop using bioenergy from Southeast Asian palm oil. Although the crisis in Southeast Asia is unique, CDM funding for monocultures, logging and tropical bioenergy schemes also threatens rainforests elsewhere, as do bioenergy policies being developed by member states. These wider issues should be addressed by the standing Working Group which already discusses tropical deforestation.
Please add your voice and tell national Nairobi conference delegates to act now to save Southeast Asia’s peatlands and rainforests, before it is too late not only for those precious ecosystems and the people who depend on them, but for the future of the global climate.
http://www.climateark.org/alerts/send.asp?id=indonesia_peatland 
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