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Forest and land fires, which occur on an annual basis in Indonesia, affect the entire Southeast Asian region. Such man-made disasters are detrimental to the environment and have irreversible long-term impacts on human health, undermining progress towards achieving almost all Sustainable Development Goals. Indonesia’s forest and peatland fires are estimated to cause approximately 110,000 premature […]

Forest and land fires, which occur on an annual basis in Indonesia, affect the entire Southeast Asian region. Such man-made disasters are detrimental to the environment and have irreversible long-term impacts on human health, undermining progress towards achieving almost all Sustainable Development Goals. Indonesia’s forest and peatland fires are estimated to cause approximately 110,000 premature […]

A Global Landscapes Forum National Policy Dialogue in Indonesia attempts to answer just that By Lynsey Grosfield “For the landscape approach there is no magic formula,” asserted Herry Purnomo, Senior Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) during a recent Global Landscapes Forum National Policy Dialogue on Laws and Best Practices for Reducing Fire […]

In the Autumn of 2015, a thick yellow toxic haze — the likes of which had never been seen before — fell over Kalimantan. Peatland fires from slash-and-burn agriculture and their accompanying toxic smoke are by no means unprecedented in the region, but the exceedingly hot and dry El Niño event that year exacerbated the already-precarious […]

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 […]

How satellites can help map and monitor critical peat landscapes By Catriona Croft-Cusworth, originally published on Forests News Dense, damp and often remote, tropical peatlands are notoriously difficult to map and monitor on the ground. So how about from space? New methods using satellite data are finding increasing success in assessing the extent, distribution and […]

By Tim Christophersen, acting Chief of UN Environment’s Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit and REDD+ Team Leader. Rooting out climate change Let’s face it: we are not on track to win the war against climate change. Time is running out, and more and more citizens around the world are starting to feel the effects of a warming […]

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 […]

“We are fighting for our land in our homeland,” explained Emmanuela Shinta as she approached the front of the stage proudly at the Global Landscapes Forum: Peatlands Matter event in Jakarta, May 18th 2017. Shinta brought along the stories from the ground all the way from the western part of Borneo, to Jakarta, the busiest […]

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 […]