Law

By Johan Kieft (UN Environment – Regional technical specialist) and Richard Wecker (UNICEF Indonesia – DRR specialist), originally published on the UN-REDD blog. Large-scale conversion of natural peatland and forests to croplands on the islands Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan) and Papua has radically altered the lives and livelihoods of millions of Indonesians in recent decades. Slash-and-burn […]

The earth is crispy around here. Crunch, crunch, crunch—my every footstep made a crackling sound like a rustling bag of potato chips. Underneath the crunchy stuff was something almost fluffy. “It is the dried peat,” Nizar told me. He’s been working in this area for decades, acrobatically transitioning between the local community, government and private […]

By Gabrielle Lipton, originally posted on Forests News Indonesia – The sky turned yellow just before the 2015 peatland fires reached their height in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Then it turned dark, like a phantom’s mask covering the island of Borneo with thick, humid brown haze. The particles in the air were so dense that people’s eyes […]

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A conversation with Gerald Schmilewski, President of the International Peatland Society (IPS), during the Global Landscapes Forum thematic event Peatlands Matter in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 18, 2017.

By Kate Evans, originally posted on Forests News Nepal – Nepal is a world leader in returning forest tenure rights to local people. But restrictive regulations continue to undermine communities’ attempts to establish sustainable businesses from forest products, experts say. Following sweeping reforms in the 1990s aimed at addressing widespread deforestation, over 20,000 community forest […]