tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/sumatra-21720/articlesSumatra – The Conversation2022-12-02T01:44:42Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1926152022-12-02T01:44:42Z2022-12-02T01:44:42ZA China-backed dam in Indonesia threatens a rare great ape – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498412/original/file-20221201-18-oka9d4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4272%2C2845&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> James Askew/SOCP handout</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2017, scientists <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31245-9">described</a> a new species of great apes – the Tapanuli orangutan. The species, found in the Batang Toru ecosystem of North Sumatara, Indonesia was listed as <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/12/the-worlds-newest-great-ape-revealed-a-month-ago-is-already-nearly-extinct-iucn/">critically endangered</a> soon after.</p>
<p>The population of the species has declined by <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/12/the-worlds-newest-great-ape-revealed-a-month-ago-is-already-nearly-extinct-iucn/">83% over the past 75 years</a>, largely due to hunting and habitat loss. Just 800 Tapanuli orangutans remain – and their last known habitat is <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/new-species-of-orangutan-threatened-from-moment-of-its-discovery/">threatened</a> by a slew of infrastructure projects. </p>
<p>Chief among them is the Chinese-funded Batang Toru hydropower dam, which threatens to fragment and submerge a large chunk of the orangutan’s habitat. The project is just one of a staggering 49 hydropower dams China is funding: mostly across Southeast Asia, but also in Africa and Latin America.</p>
<p>In new <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590332222004328">research</a>, my colleagues and I show the substantial risk to biodiversity posed by the sheer number of Chinese-funded dams. And yet, environmental regulation of these projects has serious flaws. </p>
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<img alt="A river in mountain landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498416/original/file-20221201-20-2c0qx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">China is funding 49 overseas hydropower dams, including on Pakistan’s Indus River, pictured.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.diamerbhasha.com</span></span>
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<h2>Big dams, big risks</h2>
<p>Hydropower is expected to be an important part of the global renewable energy transition. But the technology brings environmental risks. Dams disrupt the flow of rivers, altering species’ habitat. And dam reservoirs inundate and fragment habitats on land.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/GF.2020009">Traditionally</a>, financing of hydropower projects in low-income countries was the preserve of Western-backed multilateral development banks. China has now emerged as the biggest international financier of hydropower under its overseas infrastructure investment program, the Belt and Road Initiative. </p>
<p>Yet little is known about the scale of China’s hydropower financing or the biodiversity risks it brings. Whether adequate safeguards are applied to the projects by Chinese and host country regulators is also poorly understood. Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590332222004328">research</a> attempted to remedy this. </p>
<p>We found China is funding 49 hydropower dams in 18 countries including Myanmar, Laos and Pakistan.</p>
<p>The dams are likely to impede the flow of 14 free-flowing rivers, imperilling the species they harbour. The first dam on a free-flowing river is akin to the proverbial “first cut” of a road into an intact forest ecosystem, causing disproportionate harms to biodiversity. </p>
<p>We also found Chinese-funded dams overlap with the geographic ranges of 12 critically endangered freshwater fish species, including the iconic Mekong Giant Catfish and the world’s largest carp species, the Giant Barb. The dams exacerbate the threats to these species and may push them closer to extinction. </p>
<p>Almost 135 square kilometres of critical habitat on land is also likely to be inundated and fragmented by the dams and their reservoirs. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hydropower-industry-is-talking-the-talk-but-fine-words-wont-save-our-last-wild-rivers-168252">The hydropower industry is talking the talk. But fine words won't save our last wild rivers</a>
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<img alt="man looks at giant catfish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498418/original/file-20221201-16-nwhp8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Chinese-funded dams overlap with the geographic ranges of the critically endangered Mekong Giant Catfish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zeb Hogan/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Lax environmental rules</h2>
<p>Despite the biodiversity risks, we found serious gaps in the environmental rules applied to Chinese-funded dams.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0528-3">previous analysis</a> found six Chinese state-owned banks – which together contribute most financing for Belt and Road projects – had no safeguard standards to limit biodiversity damage. </p>
<p>Complementing this analysis, our investigation found Chinese regulators also did not require hydropower projects to mitigate environmental damage. Some regulator policies, however, contained non-binding guidelines.</p>
<p>A number of Chinese government policies defer to host country laws on environmental protection. But our investigation found in most countries where the dams are being built, regulation to limit environmental harms was absent or still developing. </p>
<p>This poor governance leaves species and ecosystems in these countries vulnerable to environmental damage from dams.</p>
<h2>A spotlight on Sumatra</h2>
<p>The Batang Toru dam aims to bolster North Sumatra’s energy supplies. Its proponents say the dam uses environmentally-friendly technology that requires only a small area to be flooded.</p>
<p>Two multilateral development banks, however, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/07/batang-toru-hydropower-dam-tapanuli-orangutan-delay-nshe/">distanced themselves</a> from the project after concerns were raised about potential impact on the Tapanuli orangutan. The Chinese state-owned Bank of China also <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/dam-threatening-world-s-rarest-great-ape-faces-delays">withdrew</a> its finance offer after international protests. Chinese financier SDIC Power Holdings then <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b15d75ea-cced-4204-8540-912f9e693a5e">stepped in</a> to fund it.</p>
<p>Habitat destruction has confined the few remaining Tapanuli orangutans to a fragmented 1,400 square kilometre tract of rainforest in North Sumatra. Scientists say the Batang Toru dam further threatens this habitat.</p>
<p>Constructing the dam <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/new-great-ape-species-found-sparking-fears-its-survival?adobe_mc=MCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1669850712&_ga=2.265727115.508268207.1669850712-1483009232.1669850712">requires digging</a> a tunnel in an area where most Tapanuli orangutans live. Experts also <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/dam-threatening-world-s-rarest-great-ape-faces-delays">say</a> the project will permanently isolate sub-populations of the species, increasing the risk of extinction. </p>
<p>The case illustrates the potential destruction hydropower projects can cause in the absence of appropriate planning and safeguards.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/orangutans-could-half-earth-conservation-save-the-red-ape-192529">Orangutans: could 'half-Earth' conservation save the red ape?</a>
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<img alt="small house on riverbank at night" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498421/original/file-20221201-18-7vak8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Batang Toru dam aims to bolster North Sumatra’s energy supplies. Pictured: a house on a riverbank near the project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/DEDI SINUHAJI</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Need for holistic planning</h2>
<p>The sheer number of Chinese-funded dams presents significant biodiversity risks. It also presents an opportunity. </p>
<p>China is funding several hydropower projects in single river basins. This puts it in an advantageous position to carry out “basin-scale planning”. </p>
<p>This involves making decisions about dams not based solely on an individual project, but by considering it in the context of other projects within the basin, as well as in the broader context of communities and the environment.</p>
<p>This type of planning also means dams can be configured to have the least impact on critically endangered species, and other irreplaceable and vulnerable biodiversity elements.</p>
<p>Such “system scale” planning is a key recommendation of international initiatives such as the World Commission on Dams and the European Union’s Water Framework Directive. </p>
<p>It also involves determining whether a proposed dam is the best way to meet energy needs, or if alternatives – such as wind or solar – could do so with lower environmental risks. </p>
<p>In the case of the Batang Toru dam, a 2020 <a href="https://www.mightyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/Batang_Toru_Analysis_English-final.pdf">report</a> by a leading international consulting firm found the dam would not “materially improve access to nor the regularity of power supply” in North Sumatra, which in fact had a power surplus. </p>
<p>Given the huge damage dams can cause to biodiversity, it is crucial that only those dams that are really needed get built – and any associated damage is minimised.</p>
<p>The many Chinese-funded dams on the horizon must undergo rigorous vetting if serious biodiversity damage is to be averted. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-conservation-areas-are-not-living-up-to-their-potential-in-indonesia-130463">Why conservation areas are not living up to their potential in Indonesia</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Divya Narain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The sheer number of Chinese-funded dams pose a substantial risk to biodiversity. And yet, environmental regulation of these projects has serious flaws.Divya Narain, PhD Candidate, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1414572020-07-02T06:42:57Z2020-07-02T06:42:57ZThe dark history of slavery and racism in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345000/original/file-20200701-159785-1bl4yc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dutch supervisors oversaw the local coolies in the tobacco warehouse in Deli Medan North Sumatra, 1897.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/4600341423/"> www.nationaalarchief.nl</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The anti-racism protest that started in the US has spread to Europe and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/pro-racist-anti-racism-protests-continue-worldwide-200607200718424.html">world</a>. </p>
<p>Protesters are not only denouncing racism but also condemning slavery in the colonial era by bringing down <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52963352">colonialist statues and slave traders</a>.</p>
<p>In the Netherlands, protesters called for the statue of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-protesters-call-for-removal-of-colonial-era-statue/a-53878846">Jan Pieterszoon Coen</a> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Pieterszoon-Coen">the Governor-General of the Dutch Trade Company (VOC)</a> in the 17th century in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) to be removed. </p>
<p>Slave trading was widely carried out during the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia. Especially in North Sumatra, human trading for plantation workers, known as coolies, was widely practiced around 150 years ago.</p>
<p>Last year, I took some Australian students to Medan, as part of the New Colombo Plan program, to learn about plantation agriculture in North Sumatra. During the trip, I began researching about the soil in North Sumatra. I found out many pieces of research had been carried out in the colonial era on the soils of Deli.</p>
<p>The region near Medan is famous for its Deli tobacco, and colonial planters researched how to boost tobacco production. Behind the golden age and success of Dutch research, I found enormous human casualties that built plantations in North Sumatra. Widespread racism and slavery occurred in plantations managed by colonial companies.</p>
<h2>Memorial of slave traders</h2>
<p>Although some <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9997917">novels</a> and <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/961459">academic writings</a> have described the life of indentured labour in North Sumatra, the general public rarely discuss the history of slavery. </p>
<p>Even until the end of the 20th century, the Dutch government never acknowledged the <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/05/two-centuries-slavery-indonesian-soil.html">violence during colonial times</a>.</p>
<p>Medan, famous as a trading city in the early 20th century, once erected two monuments to commemorate the glory of slave traders. In 1915, a fountain was erected in front of the Medan Post Office to commemorate Jacob Nienhuys as the “pioneer” of the Deli plantation.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342625/original/file-20200618-41200-1lb3nxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Medan Post Office. The Nienhuys fountain erected in 1915 in front of the Medan post office to commemorate Jacob Nienhuys. The fountain was destroyed in 1958.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Het_post-_en_telegraafkantoor_en_de_Nienhuys-fontein_TMnr_10015240.jpg">Tropenmuseum Collection</a></span>
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<p>In 1928, the statue of Jacob Theodoor Cremer was erected in front of the Deli Plantation Association office building (now the Putri Hijau military hospital) with an inscription “Cremer, 1847-1923. The founder of Deli tobacco plantations, the founder of the railway in Deli, a tireless warrior who worked for the benefit of this plantation country”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342626/original/file-20200618-41238-1xhxc4z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Cremer Kuli statue inaugurated in 1928 in front of the Deli Planters Vereeniging office, now the Putri Hijau Military Hospital in Medan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://kolonialemonumenten.nl/2016/12/06/jacob-t-cremer-medan-1928/">Monumenten Colonial Collection</a></span>
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<p>These two monuments no longer exist, but the legacy of coolies from the two colonial figures can still be felt today in North Sumatra.</p>
<h2>The history of coolies in Deli</h2>
<p>The story goes that Jacob Nienhuys, a Dutch tobacco trader, came to Labuhan Deli in North Sumatra in 1863. Labuhan was a small village near Belawan, inhabited by only 2,000 Malay residents and about 20 Chinese and 100 Indians.</p>
<p>The Dutch colonial government had just abolished the <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2fe2/28cf060fabd02e3097a8cdcad7dd8f414e81.pdf">cultuurstelsel</a> (or enforced planting) policy and implemented a “liberal” economic system in the Dutch East Indies, which was open to private companies.</p>
<p>The Sultan of Deli, Sultan Ma’ mun Al Rashid Perkasa Alam (1853-1924), was interested in developing land in Deli as a plantation area. He gave a land concession to Nienhuys to grow tobacco. The first problem faced by Nienhuys was a lack of labour. Local Malays and Bataks did not want to work as plantation labourers. </p>
<p>Nienhuys then sought labour by “importing” 120 Chinese coolies from Penang, Malaysia in 1864. After several years of trials, Nienhuys successfully developed Deli tobacco as a high-quality cigar wrapper sought after by European and American smokers. </p>
<p>With a capital investment from Rotterdam, Nienhuys founded the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deli_Company">Deli Maatschappij</a> or Deli Company and developed industrial, large scale tobacco plantations in Deli.</p>
<p>With the rapid development of plantations, he needed more workers. Every year, thousands of Chinese coolies were brought in from Penang and Singapore. Workers from Java, Banjar, and India were also shipped in. </p>
<p>In 1890, the Dutch transported more than 20,000 Chinese coolies to Deli. With cheap labours, tobacco companies could run a very profitable business. In 1896, the sale of 190,000 bales of Deli tobacco in Amsterdam brought in 32 million guilders. If converted to the current money, it is around US$450 million.</p>
<p>The total Deli tobacco sales accomplished by colonial planters from 1864 to 1938 reached 2.77 billion Guilders, or if converted to current currency is around US$40 billion.</p>
<h2>White racism</h2>
<p>The Dutch planters treated the coolies inhumanely and like slaves. </p>
<p>A letter dated October 28, 1876, by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928658?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Frans Carl Valck</a>, the Assistant Resident in East Sumatra noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It would be a miracle indeed, if respectable Chinese coolies would be attracted to a place where coolies are beaten to death or at least so mistreated that the thrashings leave permanent scars, where manhunts are the order of the day. …. Just recently I heard a rumour about a certain European who prided himself on having hung him down after the coolie had turned entirely blue.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nienhuys <a href="https://www.niod.nl/sites/niod.nl/files/If%20the%20walls%20could%20speak.pdf">wrote</a> that “Chinese are bold arch-swindlers and the Javanese are lazy and hot tempered” and “Batak is a stupid race, on the whole”.</p>
<p>An article dated May 30th, 1913 in <a href="https://www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/view?coll=ddd&identifier=KBDDD02:000198913:mpeg21:a0036"><em>Sumatra Post</em></a> wrote that around 1867, Nienhuys was indicted of flogging seven Chinese coolies to death. The case was never proven nor disproved, but the Sultan of Deli ordered Nienhuys to leave the land of Deli and never to return.</p>
<p>In 1869, JT Cremer replaced Nienhuys as the administrator of the Deli company. To control thousands of workers from China and Java, Cremer designed the Coolie Ordinance, passed by the Dutch East Indies government in 1880. The regulation allowed companies to engage coolies in a contract that bound them for three years. The workers were meant to pay for their “debt” of transportation cost to Deli land.</p>
<p>The contract included a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poenale_sanctie">penal sanction</a> that allowed the company to punish the workers if they forfeited the agreement. The ordinance gave power to the planters to punish coolies who were thought to be disobedient, lazy or tried to run away. </p>
<h2>Monopoly and Brutality</h2>
<p>The Deli Tobacco Planters Association was founded in 1879 to monopolise tobacco plantations in Deli. Cremer also lobbied the Dutch government to bring in workers directly from mainland China. In 1900, 6,900 workers were brought directly from the ports of Swatow in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. From 1888-1930, more than 200,000 Chinese workers had been shipped into Deli.</p>
<p>Starting in 1910, coolies were also shipped from Java as new rubber plantations were established. By 1930 there were 26,000 Chinese, 230,000 Javanese, and 1,000 Indians working on Deli plantations.</p>
<p>In 1902, Van der Brand, a Dutch lawyer in Medan, revealed the brutality of colonial planters towards their workers in a pamphlet entitled “Millions from Deli (<em>De Millionen uit Deli</em>)”. This publication is considered the <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Max-Havelaar">Max Havelaar</a></em> of Deli.</p>
<p>The colonial government felt obliged to respond and send a prosecutor J.L.T. Rhemrev to investigate the case. Rhemrev’s report in 1904 described even worse treatments to the workers. But the report was filed away, and only in 1987 discovered by Jan Breman, a researcher from the University of Amsterdam.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=T-NeDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT76&lpg=PT76&dq=tan+malaka+deli&source=bl&ots=iG4SWOkFkV&sig=ACfU3U0T0_BTHwujCl3Ce5aO3WG4AQUw1Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi9uJy2k57qAhW-63MBHZY-De8Q6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=tan%20malaka%20deli&f=false">Anticolonial activist from Indonesia, Tan Malaka</a>, who was teacher a in Deli plantation in the 1920s, described the life there:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Deli, a land of gold, a haven for the capitalist, but a land of sweat, tears, and death, a hell for the workers.</em></p>
<p><em>The coolies were forced to work; they were slaves. The coolies worked from dawn to night, received enough wages to fill in their stomachs and cover their back; they lived in a shed like goats in their cages, they were called godverdom and could be beaten any time and could lose their wives and daughters as desired by the master.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/controversial-views-on-writing-colonial-history/232FD85046BB143953293576913B8FC5">Breman</a> estimated that a fourth of the coolies died before their contract ended. </p>
<h2>Legacy of colonial plantations</h2>
<p>After Indonesian independence, this case of slavery had been forgotten, both in the Netherlands and in Indonesia.</p>
<p>In addition to the destruction to humanity, Dutch and European colonial companies, in developing plantations in North Sumatra, have cleared a massive area of virgin forests. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbnm4v6.11?refreqid=excelsior%3A6b1e7a8381e8d0184fb4542a1b51b5c6&seq=21#metadata_info_tab_contents">Karl Pelzer</a>, an academic from Yale University, estimated that more than half of the land in Deli Serdang and Langkat Regencies had been cleared for plantations during the Dutch colonial period.</p>
<p>The legacy of the Dutch plantation system still lingers. Plantations in North Sumatra still apply the colonial administration system, with an administrator, a plantation assistant, clerks, foremen, and labourers.</p>
<p>A large amount of Javanese still work in plantations, while they are no longer bound by the contract, <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/12/11/thousands-workers-protest-streets-over-minimum-wage.html">the labor wage is still minimum.</a></p>
<h2>The romanticism of Deli</h2>
<p>Lately, the rich history of Deli land has been <a href="https://historia.id/urban/articles/ketika-ibukota-kesultanan-deli-pindah-ke-medan-vQJOX">romanticized</a> as a land of rich <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBS1WAvwSPw."> historical heritage</a>.</p>
<p>Along with this beautiful fairy tale, Nienhuys is narrated as the founder of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBS1WAvwSPw">modern city</a> of Medan. The Dutch <a href="https://kolonialemonumenten.nl/2016/12/06/jacob-t-cremer-medan-1928/">Colonial Monument website</a> glorifies Cremer as the colonial with the highest ideals that brought civilization, prosperity, peace, and order.</p>
<p>Nienhuys and Cremer became wealthy from the Deli plantations. Nienhuys’ house in Amsterdam is now the <a href="https://www.niod.nl/en">NIOD</a> Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. It has a display of Nienhuys’ special <a href="http://www.amsterdamsegrachtenhuizen.info/grachten/hge/hge400/hg14380/?tx_sbtab_pi1%5Btab%5D=4">golden bathroom</a>. Cremer even served as a colonial minister in the Dutch government (1897-1901).</p>
<p>The Wikipedia pages of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Nienhuys">Nienhuys</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Theodoor_Cremer">Cremer</a> paint them as the founders of a tobacco company and a tobacco magnate and do not list the slavery system that they had created.</p>
<p>The romanticism of Medan’s history must not forget the sweat and blood of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers who were enslaved on plantations during colonial times.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: the number of tobacco sales was revised.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Budiman Minasny received funding from the Australian government through the New Colombo Plan scholarship.</span></em></p>Slave trading was widely carried out during the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia. Widespread racism and slavery occurred in plantations managed by colonial companies.Budiman Minasny, Professor in Soil-Landscape Modelling, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263302019-11-28T03:31:06Z2019-11-28T03:31:06Z4 steps the Indonesian government can take to ensure locals help put out forest fires<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303072/original/file-20191122-113006-jri622.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C5406%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Forest fires break out in Indonesia every year from land clearing using fires. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A massive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/nov/11/indonesia-forest-fires-explained-haze-palm-oil-timber-burning">forest fire broke out in Indonesia in 2015</a>, burning at least two million hectares and killing 19 people.</p>
<p>It also resulted in an estimated 500,000 cases of respiratory tract infections. It cost the country at least <a href="https://www.cnnindonesia.com/internasional/20151211143623-106-97575/indonesia-rilis-data-kebakaran-hutan-2015-di-paris">US$47 billion</a> and polluted neighbouring countries like Singapore and Malaysia.</p>
<p>The Indonesian government introduced a peatland restoration program to prevent massive forest fires in 2016 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-haze-peatlands/indonesia-sets-up-peatland-restoration-agency-after-fires-idUSKCN0US0C620160114">establishing the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG)</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sebelum-jabatan-berakhir-susi-pudjiastuti-tetapkan-teluk-benoa-sebagai-kawasan-konservasi-maritim-ini-langkah-selanjutnya-126842">Sebelum jabatan berakhir, Susi Pudjiastuti tetapkan Teluk Benoa sebagai kawasan konservasi maritim. Ini langkah selanjutnya</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Restoring peatland, a distinct ecosystem that needs to be flooded by water at all times, is an ideal way to prevent forest fires.</p>
<p>If <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/why-peatlands-matter">peatland</a> dries up, either by being drained or burned down for plantation, the area becomes flammable and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.my/indonesia-is-burning-peatlands-heres-why-that-makes-the-haze-even-worse-than-normal-fires/">hard to extinguish</a>. Fires are smoldering in low temperature and spread undetected underground on dry peatland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303907/original/file-20191127-112512-ovslef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burned areas for oil palm plantation in 2016, in Ketapang, Kalimantan. Indonesia loses billions of dollars from land clearing using burning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Salvacampillo / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The restoration program seems like the perfect plan to prevent forest fires. It focuses on how to flood <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/why-peatlands-matter">peatland</a>, plant endemic trees and provide alternative livelihood – known as the 3Rs (rewetting, revegetation, and revitalisation).</p>
<p>Nevertheless, peat fires still happens in Indonesia, ironically the provinces heavily dominated by peatlands in Sumatra and Kalimantan.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-it-takes-to-put-out-forest-fires-122644">What it takes to put out forest fires</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This year’s fores fires <a href="https://www.mongabay.co.id/2019/10/22/kebakaran-hutan-dan-lahan-sampai-september-2019-hampir-900-ribu-hektar/">started as early</a> as January and burned until October or November, burning nearly 900,000 hectares, polluting air with thick haze and eventually harming human health. </p>
<p>Our research in the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, between 2018 and 2019, reveals resistance by local communities to the government’s restoration program is the main reason forests keep burning. </p>
<h2>What we found</h2>
<p>We conducted research to examine community participation in peatland restoration in two provinces in Sumatra (South Sumatra and Riau), and Central Kalimantan in Kalimantan island, in 2018 and 2019. </p>
<p>We conducted interviews and focus group discussions, involving ten to 20 respondents. They comprise heads of villages, local disaster agencies, local villages’ fire fighting squads, farmers and indigenous communities. </p>
<p>Our interviews with farmers showed they mostly rejected the government’s ban on clearing the land with fires as it’s against their common practice. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southeast-asia-haze/area-burned-in-2019-forest-fires-in-indonesia-exceeds-2018-official-idUSKBN1X00VU">slashing and burning</a> is the most preferable technique to clear land as it is considered the cheapest method.</p>
<p>The local communities’ stance leads them to refuse rewetting, revegetation, and revitalisation efforts under the government’s peatland restoration program.</p>
<p>For example, Simpur villagers in Pulang Pisau regency in Central Kalimantan broke down canal blocking, intended to wet the peat (rewetting), to make way for their boats to go to their plantations. </p>
<p>Most of these land owners also refuse to plant endemic trees such as <em>galam</em> (<em>Melaleuca leucadendra</em>), <em>belangerin</em> (<em>Shorea balangeran</em>), jelutong (<em>Dyera polyphylla</em>) or sedges (<em>Cyperaceae</em>) and prefer short-lived and economical crops, such as <em>sengon</em> (<em>Albizia chinensis</em>) or oil palm. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303908/original/file-20191127-112489-1vtkfhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jelutong tree or Dyera costulata has longer growth time compared to commercial crops, such as oil palm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://id.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkas:Dyera_costulata.jpg">wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This happens in local communities in Ogan Komering Ilir villages in South Sumatra and Pulang Pisang regency. </p>
<p>They prefer palm oil as it only takes five years to cultivate, while endemic trees need at least 20 years. </p>
<p>Around 2 million hectares of peat need to be restored by 2020. At least 400,000 hectares of this is located in private and community lands, mostly owned by local and indigenous communities.</p>
<p>Without local participation in peatland restoration, it would be difficult to restore degraded peat and to prevent fires in the future. </p>
<p>There are four steps the Indonesian government can take to improve local people’s participation in restoring peatlands and to reduce risks of forest fires: </p>
<p><strong>1. Provide maintenance funds</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://pantaugambut.id/uploads/default/komitmen/resources/2c3d33fec9168c27a5a631a19f72d3e5_Perpres_Nomor_1_Tahun_2016_BRG.pdf">Peatland Restoration Agency</a> aims to rehabilitate 2 million hectares of burned peat by 2020. </p>
<p>Peatland restoration needs funding. The agency only has the budget to implement the restoration program but not to maintain it. </p>
<p>The agency may have built various infrastructure, like deep wells or canal blockings to restore peatland. But without proper maintenance, this infrastructure is easily destroyed, especially by disapproving villagers.</p>
<p>The government can provide money for maintenance through village funds. </p>
<p>A new ministerial regulation on village funds in 2019 allows the disbursement of <a href="https://mediaindonesia.com/read/detail/262129-dana-desa-bisa-dipakai-untuk-karhutla">village funds</a> to maintain infrastructure built to mitigate disasters, like forest fires. </p>
<p><strong>2. Reward and punishment</strong> </p>
<p>The government should introduce a reward and punishment system to involve local villages in the implementation of the restoration program. </p>
<p>If they are willing to participate in the program , they can get rewards. The rewards can be in the forms of incentives, or grants and partnerships to manage the lands.</p>
<p>On the other hand, penalties can be given to those who intentionally burn down peat areas or fail to prevent their areas from burning. </p>
<p>The money from the penalties can be used to finance peatland restoration. </p>
<p><strong>3. Cut red tape</strong> </p>
<p>More often than not, forest fire mitigation is marred in bureaucracy, especially among government agencies.</p>
<p>When land or peatland is on fire, local fire brigades, involving villagers and civil societies, will be the first to respond. However, they are usually lacking in equipment and even knowledge of how to put out fires in burned peatlands.</p>
<p>Deployment of the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD), with better equipment, is allowed when emergency status is declared. </p>
<p>This is slowing down efforts to put out fires, risking thousands of hectares of peatland being burned. </p>
<p>To cut red tape, we recommend using village funds to better equip the local fire brigades. At the same time, the deployment of BPBD should not wait until emergency status is declared. </p>
<p><strong>4. Promoting cheap and reliable no-burning technology</strong></p>
<p>Aside from the infamous slash and burning tehnique, other options are available. This includes <a href="https://www.ru.nl/science/aquatic/education/internships/msc-student-research-projects/paludiculture-sustainable-management-peatlands/">paludiculture</a>, a practice of crop production on wet soil, suitable for peatlands. This practice in Sumatra promotes <a href="https://www.antaranews.com/berita/1134980/milenial-kabupaten-ogan-komering-ilir-buat-kerajinan-berbahan-purun">purun</a> (a grass-like plant that grows on peat swamps), planting <a href="https://forestsnews.cifor.org/61092/pineapples-and-peatlands?fnl=en">pineapples</a> and fish farming.</p>
<p>The government can also provide hand tractors to every village (suitable for palm oil plantation and sengon) and better irrigation in non-peat areas to grow rice, while promoting <a href="http://www.worldagroforestry.org/publication/agroforestry-peatlands-combining-productive-and-protective-functions-part-restoration-0">agroforestry</a>.</p>
<p>These alternatives, if implemented properly, can support revitalisation efforts where the government needs to provide alternative forms of livelihood. This way, farmers can still manage and reap economic benefits from their crops without burning land. </p>
<h2>Moving Forward</h2>
<p>Land and forest fires will continue in Indonesia – with devastating consequences for the world – as long as peatlands continue to be used for agriculture, livelihood, plantation and other activities.</p>
<p>We need holistic reform to ensure all stakeholders contribute to the peatland restoration program. The government also needs to promote existing policies such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/jokowi-telah-berlakukan-permanen-moratorium-izin-hutan-ini-tiga-keuntungannya-bagi-indonesia-121892">peatland moratorium</a>, <a href="https://forestsnews.cifor.org/60457/the-future-of-social-forestry-in-indonesia?fnl=en">social forestry</a> and the <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/12/11/indonesia-launches-one-map-policy-to-resolve-land-conflicts.html">integrated map</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laely Nurhidayah receives funding from ANU SMERU Indonesia Research Project 2019, Peatland Restoration Agency Research fund, LIPI Research fund, AMINEF Fulbright visiting fellow 2019-2020. </span></em></p>Villagers of Sumatra and Kalimantan relunctant to participate in peatland restoration, contributing to the recent forest fires in Indonesia.Laely Nurhidayah, Researcher, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1223882019-09-10T02:49:47Z2019-09-10T02:49:47ZWe built an app to detect areas most vulnerable to life-threatening haze<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291674/original/file-20190910-109943-1v3jwfz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Active fire hotspots detected by S-NPP/VIIRS on September 7 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA Worldview</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forest and land-use fires are ravaging Indonesia’s Sumatra and Kalimantan islands. Haze from these fires threatens lives as inhaling smoke can cause heart and respiratory diseases, leading to premature deaths.</p>
<p>We study the intersection of land use, fires and air pollution. Based on our latest <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000191">study</a>, smoke exposure would lead to about 36,000 premature deaths per year on average across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia over the next few decades if current trends continue – that is, if no comprehensive land management strategies, such as peatland restoration, are undertaken. </p>
<p>To prevent premature deaths from toxic haze, we developed a new online tool to provide decision-makers with information to protect people living downwind from the fires.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-things-jokowi-could-do-better-to-stop-forest-fires-and-haze-in-indonesia-120497">Three things Jokowi could do better to stop forest fires and haze in Indonesia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Health impacts of smoke exposure</h2>
<p>Severe haze blankets Southeast Asia when three things happen:</p>
<ol>
<li>the dry season coincides with El Niño (or other drought-like conditions)</li>
<li>humans use fire to clear land or maintain agricultural areas</li>
<li>peatlands are so dry and degraded that they become abundant fuel for fire. </li>
</ol>
<p>Recent severe haze episodes occurred in 1997, 2006 and 2015. While the fire season varies in intensity from year to year, fires recur every year in Indonesia.</p>
<p>Smoke from fires increases hazy conditions. Tiny particles in haze pose health risks including stroke, cardiovascular disease, respiratory infection and even brain damage. </p>
<p>With limited firefighting resources, authorities need to identify priority areas to target conservation efforts to limit vulnerability to fire. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000191">study</a> shows that one way to set priorities is to determine areas where the threat of smoke to human health is greatest. </p>
<p>Science-based evidence can do this by calculating the impact of haze on populations’ health burden. Populations that are downwind from fires are more prone to smoke exposure and resulting health problems.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-it-takes-to-put-out-forest-fires-122644">What it takes to put out forest fires</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We developed a scientific framework that incorporates satellite-derived data sets on land use, land cover and fire emissions, modelling of where smoke travels in the atmosphere, and health impacts from smoke exposure. </p>
<p>We also project future land use and land cover transitions for the next decade associated with a range of dry to wet conditions. Finally, we calculate the health impacts as a result of smoke exposure for Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. </p>
<p>While our land use and fire data sets are spatially explicit, our estimates for health impacts are at country scale.</p>
<h2>SMOKE Policy Tool</h2>
<p>As part of our study, we created the <a href="https://smokepolicytool.users.earthengine.app/view/smoke-policy-tool">SMOKE Policy Tool</a>. This is an online application that tracks smoke and allows stakeholders to explore the health benefits of blocking fires in different regions and under various land management scenarios. Users can target one or a combination of concessions (oil palm, timber, logging), conservation areas, peatlands and individual provinces.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290843/original/file-20190904-175714-1ckvy8f.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">User interface of the SMOKE Policy Tool.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tool also estimates the number of premature deaths associated with exposure to haze. In the business-as-usual scenario over the coming decades, we estimate about 36,000 premature deaths per year across Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.</p>
<p>In addition, we predict that fire-related PM2.5, the tiny particles in smoke, will reach 18-20 μg/m3 from July to October in Singapore and Indonesia. That level is nearly double the guidelines set by the World Health Organisation.</p>
<p>Estimates of public health impacts are likely to be conservative, based on our assumptions. For example, we did not consider the effects of climate change in making droughts worse, or take into account future shifts in human population.</p>
<p>However, because our scientific framework is flexible, we can incorporate updated information on fire emissions, land use, smoke exposure and population density as new datasets become available.</p>
<p>Future versions of the tool can incorporate near-real-time monitoring of fire emissions and health impacts analysis at sub-country scale.</p>
<h2>Keeping peatlands wet</h2>
<p>Most of the premature deaths due to haze in Indonesia can be avoided if the government succeeds in restoring the moist conditions in all peatlands in Sumatra and Kalimantan.</p>
<p>Our study finds that while peatlands comprise less than 20% of land area in Indonesia, peat fires contribute about two-thirds to overall fire emissions.</p>
<p>As part of the development of the SMOKE Policy Tool, we partnered with the Indonesian Peatland Restoration Agency, or BRG. Its task is to restore 2 million hectares of degraded peatlands. </p>
<p>With limited resources, the agency must set priorities for peatland restoration. Until now, the agency has determined priority sites based on the number of fire hotspots. </p>
<p>But, with the SMOKE Policy Tool, the agency could redefine its priority sites based instead on minimising the overall health burden in the Southeast Asia region. </p>
<p>Our tool shows that prioritising restoration activities along the eastern coast of South Sumatra would lead to the greatest health benefits for all three countries. Of secondary priority is the southern coast of West, Central and South Kalimantan. This is because fires on these peatlands are directly upwind of vulnerable populations.</p>
<p>Setting priority areas to fight fires in Indonesia is important for making the best use of limited resources. Future efforts can also apply the same capabilities to fires in other locations such as the Amazon rainforest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122388/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tianjia Liu receives funding from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miriam Marlier receives funding from the Winslow Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Buonocore receives funding from the High Tide Foundation, Harvard Solar Geoengineering Research Program, the Heinz Endowments, and the Barr Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loretta Mickley receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth DeFries received funding from the Winslow Foundation. </span></em></p>We have developed an online tool to help authorities identify which areas they should focus on for reducing forest fires and haze in order to maximize overall health benefits.Tianjia Liu, PhD Candidate in Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard UniversityMiriam Marlier, Associate Physical Scientist, RAND Corporation; PRGS Faculty Member, Pardee RAND Graduate SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1226442019-08-30T05:28:14Z2019-08-30T05:28:14ZWhat it takes to put out forest fires<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290250/original/file-20190830-115376-ke7u61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1280%2C850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As Amazon fires rage, Indonesia faces similar issues with peat fires that have been burning for several weeks in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.menlhk.go.id/site/single_post/2336">Ministry of Environment and Forestry</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Brazil, the world’s largest tropical rainforest is burning. Indonesia is home to the third-largest tropical forest and this too is burning in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan. </p>
<p>Recently, a member of the Environment and Forestry Ministry Fire Fighter Task Force, or Manggala Agni, was <a href="https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20190823070035-20-423957/anggota-manggala-agni-meninggal-saat-padamkan-kebakaran-hutan">killed by a falling tree</a> while trying to extinguish fires in Jambi province.</p>
<p>I studied forestry in Indonesia and Japan, and ever since my student days in the 1980s I have been helping firefighters put out forest fires in this country. </p>
<p>Land and forest fires in Indonesia often occur due to slash-and-burn techniques of clearing land for plantations. </p>
<p>Putting out forest fires is dangerous and difficult. Firefighters have to endure being in burning forests, facing extreme heat and hazardous smoke, not just for one or two hours, but five to six hours. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FOdvOZ7AwBw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fire fighting at Muara Medak, Banyung Lencir, South Sumatra, which has been going on for the past two weeks. Video provided by Bambang Hero Saharjo.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My first firefighting experience was in 1986 at a timber plantation, while I was doing my undergraduate research in South Sumatra. We had to be constantly alert because the fire kept on burning through the night. </p>
<p>I had to put out fires again in the 1990s, in 1994 during my master’s degree research and also 1997 and 1998. Indonesia suffered one of its worst forest fires then as <a href="http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-038i.pdf">11 millions hectares of forest burned down</a>. </p>
<p>During those times, the nights were pitch black in fire areas in peat forests. Because the smoke blanketed the area, you really couldn’t see anything. And the smoke particles were the real discomfort. Imagine burning a pile of rubbish; you’ll get suffocated from the fumes. </p>
<p>Besides that, we also had to pay attention to where we were stepping because you could get trapped in smouldering peatland. Areas of burned peat are prone to land subsidence. </p>
<p>Another challenge was how to get the heavy tools, even hoses, into the burned areas. </p>
<h2>How do peat fires start and how do you put them out?</h2>
<p>Fires in Indonesia’s forest are infamous for being hard to extinguish and for producing blinding and suffocating haze. This is because a large area of Indonesia’s forests is peat forests, made of rotten leaves and other organic matter that can reach tens of metres below the ground. </p>
<p>Dealing with fires in peatlands is different compared to other fires where you can see the fires spreading above the ground. This is not the case for peatlands.</p>
<p>For peat fires, if the peat is dry due to a low water table, fires will quickly spread through the roots underground, then to lower vegetation and bushes. We never know where the actual fires are in peatlands; all we can see is smoke. </p>
<p>One of the effective ways to stop fire in peatlands is by flooding them, so water goes into the pores among the roots and puts out the fires. </p>
<p>One way is to set up water reservoirs, locally known as <em>embung</em>, in the areas prone to fires so it’s easy to access water when needed. These reservoirs are needed because it would otherwise be difficult to find water in dry season, especially on burned peats.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290016/original/file-20190829-184234-11gf2cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Water bombing is not necessarily effective for putting out peat fires. In addition, it’s expensive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.menlhk.go.id/site/single_post/2336">Ministry of Environment and Forestry</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Water bombings from helicopters are not effective for stopping peatland fires, because the water only reaches the tops of the trees. It quickly evaporates from the heat even before reaching the ground. </p>
<p>If the peats are not flooded, the cycle goes on: dry weather, fire, dry weather, fire. </p>
<p>Ideally, peats should always be wet. You need to have water in peatlands, or it will be very dangerous.</p>
<h2>Safety measures for firefighters</h2>
<p>The dangers of burning peats range from its impacts on the environment to the fact that it claims lives while trying to tame them. </p>
<p>From my experience, more often than not people get too excited about putting out the fires and prefer to continue working long hours in the burning areas. This long exposure is what causes their health condition to deteriorate.</p>
<p>Firefighters are equipped with knowledge and skills (to put out fires). But accidents happen. Trees are usually vulnerable during peat fires because the fires consume the roots. So, with any slight pressure or strong wind, the trees could fall.</p>
<p>I once nearly injured myself during firefighting in Riau as a tree of 40-50 metres collapsed near where I was standing. </p>
<p>These are unpredictable events. It’s good to have a high spirit to put out fires, but firefighters should be cautious too. </p>
<p>It’s also important to have a good strategy, including good logistics, because people are going to be in fire areas for long hours. So, you need to ensure they have enough food and water.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-things-jokowi-could-do-better-to-stop-forest-fires-and-haze-in-indonesia-120497">Three things Jokowi could do better to stop forest fires and haze in Indonesia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Prevention efforts</h2>
<p>It’s costly to put out forest fires. To rent a helicopter in Indonesia costs at least US$2000 to US$3000, or roughly Rp28,5 million to RP42,7 million, an hour. And it’s impossible to put out forest fires in one to two hours. </p>
<p>In any case, as I mentioned above, water bombing using helicopters is not effective for putting out fire in peatlands compared to flooding them. </p>
<p>That is why supervision of land-clearing practices and restoration of peatlands are crucial.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-benefits-of-indonesias-permanent-ban-on-forest-clearance-121751">Three benefits of Indonesia's permanent ban on forest clearance</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Indonesian government has mandated the Peatland Restoration Agency, or the BRG, to rehabilitate 2.6 million hectares of peatlands, ensuring these are wet all year round. Some 75% of those areas are located in concession areas, the rest are people’s lands or national parks. </p>
<p>The BRG supervises companies to make sure they restore peatlands in their concession areas. So, it should have been easy to determine who’s doing restoration or not. </p>
<p>Indonesia already has an early warning system, maps of high-risk areas, restoration efforts and law enforcement banning land and forest clearing using fires. If we’re serious about preventing forest fires, we have to make sure all of these efforts work. Because, if forests are burning, it is so hard to put them out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bambang Hero Saharjo tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>A forest professor tells his experience on the hardships of putting out peat fires in IndonesiaBambang Hero Saharjo, Professor of Forest Protection, IPB UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1181032019-05-31T15:58:32Z2019-05-31T15:58:32ZScientists race to save the Sumatran rhino as last male in Malaysia dies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277411/original/file-20190531-69059-1mjldmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C933%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rosa in the Sumatran Rhino (_Dicerorhinus sumatrensis_) Sanctuary, Way Kambas, Sumatra, Indonesia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#/media/File:Sumatran_Rhinoceros_Way_Kambas_2008.jpg">Willem v Strien/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rhino die every day, so why is the world mourning the loss of Tam? Tam was the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/last-sumatran-rhino-malaysia-dies/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190527animals-lastmalesumatranrhino::rid=&sf213370109=1">last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia</a> and was thought to have died of old age in his thirties – elderly for a Sumatran rhino. He was taken from the wild in 2008 to a sanctuary in Malaysian Borneo. His health had been deteriorating since April 2019 and he finally succumbed in May. He is survived by a single female, Iman, who cannot reproduce due to a ruptured tumour in her uterus.</p>
<p>The news isn’t good, but an estimated 80 individuals survive in the wilds of Indonesia – not a great number, but <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/javan-rhino">marginally better than the Javan rhino</a> which <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/javan-rhino">may be as few as 58</a>. By comparison, the African white rhino, which draws a great deal of concern, is <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino-info/population-figures/">thought to number 20,000</a>. But populations of the Sumatran rhino – the world’s smallest and hairiest rhino – have declined 70% in the past two decades, mainly due to poaching and habitat loss, and are now <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/6553/12787457">classed as critically endangered</a> – the highest possible risk of extinction.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-rhinos-hog-the-limelight-while-their-asian-cousins-head-for-extinction-47336">Africa's rhinos hog the limelight while their Asian cousins head for extinction</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The majority of the remaining Sumatran rhino are reckoned to be on Sumatra – the largest island of Indonesia – with a handful likely in the wild in Indonesian Borneo. For such a rare species with a scattered distribution that lives in dense mountain forests, evaluating the population size isn’t easy. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/will-current-conservation-responses-save-the-critically-endangered-sumatran-rhinoceros-dicerorhinus-sumatrensis/E36BC68A94599C82D48D9EB810DFD321">Camera trapping</a> is the main tool for counting this relatively diminutive and shy rhino, but even confidence in the estimate of 80 individuals isn’t high. There may be more but there are likely to be less – possibly <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/worst-case-scenario-there-could-be-only-30-wild-sumatran-rhinos-left/">as few as 30</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277352/original/file-20190531-69055-1hq9bi5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sumatran rhino once roamed across Asia, from south-east India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. It’s believed the wild Malaysian populations are now extinct. There may be a small population in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#cite_note-5">Eric Dinerstein/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Sumatra, populations are thought to be isolated as their habitats have <a href="https://theconversation.com/habitat-loss-doesnt-just-affect-species-it-impacts-networks-of-ecological-relationships-117687">fragmented into smaller pockets due to deforestation</a>. The result is inbreeding and means that genetically these sub-populations have a bleak future. They have been extinct in the wild in Malaysia since 2015. Captive Tam and Iman were already a lost cause at that point. With no possibility of reproduction, the Malaysian population of Sumatran rhino have been functionally extinct for many years.</p>
<p>Low population sizes, few rhinos living close together and the isolation of viable habitats have combined with fatal consequences for the Sumatran rhino. If females don’t regularly mate, they have a tendency to develop uterine cysts and growths. It was this that left Iman infertile. This is what <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/allee-effects-19699394">conservation biologists refer to as an “Allee effect”</a>: the lower a population becomes, the less successful individuals become at reproducing. Ultimately, this <a href="https://conservationbytes.com/2008/08/25/the-extinction-vortex/">leads to an extinction vortex</a>.</p>
<h2>Captive breeding</h2>
<p>Tam’s death may yet encourage an ambitious plan to save the Sumatran rhino – with <a href="https://savesumatranrhinos.org/">a concerted effort</a> to capture as many of the remaining wild rhino as possible, and breed them in captivity.</p>
<p>A young female called Pahu – whose forest habitat was <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/critically-endangered-sumatran-rhino-moved-to-new-home">literally being removed from under her feet</a> by mining companies – was captured in 2018 and is apparently doing well in captivity. Sadly, there is a risk to this strategy. By removing rhino from their habitat, we further reduce the probability of them breeding successfully in the wild.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277393/original/file-20190531-69063-63bai7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mother, Ratu, with four-month-old Andatu at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park, Indonesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_rhinoceros#/media/File:Sumatran_rhinoceros_four_days_old.jpg">International Rhino Foundation/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As an ecologist, captive breeding is something that I find hard to celebrate. But it may be the only hope to save a species that, otherwise, appears doomed to slowly dwindle into extinction.</p>
<p>That said, the breeding success of Sumatran rhino in captivity still isn’t assured. There has been some success in US zoos, but from 45 rhino captured since 1984, only <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/oryx/article/will-current-conservation-responses-save-the-critically-endangered-sumatran-rhinoceros-dicerorhinus-sumatrensis/E36BC68A94599C82D48D9EB810DFD321">four calves have been born</a>. Even geopolitics deals this species a bad hand. Malaysia holds Iman and her eggs – the single surviving captive Sumatran rhino on the island of Borneo – and the sperm of recently deceased Tam. But the country must now collaborate with Indonesia, which holds seven rhino in captivity which have <a href="https://www.savetherhino.org/programmes/the-sumatran-rhino-sanctuary/">so far produced two offspring</a>.</p>
<h2>Back from the dead?</h2>
<p>The last throw of the dice may have to involve something akin to resurrection – using <a href="https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/death-malaysia-last-male-sumatran-225539255.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD_kQRJsSBKlJUSaSDDk68L2KSzq0l1A0Dbppp4c9H8kW_qbQ7CDaTExYtSmeVg5Zc3Z2uWm5YpcSesKj9l-EYvSyA6s96xmis7SowVMaFqL-uNv2WDM_3hdI77V9xD6-RfTEVOatbW4TzCqUn7AbM4Ybk82EOKDOQH6CEzRQYat">stored eggs and sperm from rhino</a>, including Iman and Tam, for artifical insemination or IVF in captive surrogates of the same species. Sumatran rhinos are truly unique – <a href="http://www.pachydermjournal.org/index.php/pachy/article/view/464/363">they are the only member of their genus</a>. With no related rhino species, the only surrogate candidate must be another Sumatran rhino. If successful, offspring could potentially come from otherwise lost genes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/hybrid-embryos-raise-hope-of-resurrecting-northern-white-rhino-but-whats-the-point-99249">as has been suggested for the African white rhino</a>. </p>
<p>While the science is developing, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/de-extinction-22997">de-extinction</a>” is still an expensive and unlikely long shot that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-northern-white-rhino-should-not-be-brought-back-to-life-94153">raises its own practical and ethical dilemmas</a>. If successful, we could end up farming an ecologically dead species. I want wild animals to be in the wild contributing to the ecosystems within which they evolved – not living in zoos forever.</p>
<p>Both modes of rescue – captive breeding and genetic resurrection – are too little, too late, like firefighters taking action when the damage is already too far gone. The longer that society waits to help a declining species, the greater the delay in addressing the driving forces of endangerment, be they poaching, habitat loss, non-native species, or climate change. And the lower the probability of success, and the greater the cost of the attempt.</p>
<p>So, Tam was just one rhino. He was not the last of his species, or even the last male of his species, but he is one more loss from an already limited population. The lower the population size, the greater the impact of losing another individual. Tam is another alarm bell alerting us to our inability to act quickly enough to remove the threats to species, and ultimately to save life on Earth. Every dead Sumatran rhino is now met with publicity and concern. Rightly so, but we need to start getting the conservation action right early enough for it to work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Gilchrist does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The world mourns the loss of Malaysia’s last male Sumatran rhino. Can anything stop the slide of the species towards extinction?Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1068682018-11-14T16:09:45Z2018-11-14T16:09:45ZIceland advert: conservation is intensely political, let’s not pretend otherwise<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245320/original/file-20181113-194513-h7fxao.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C7%2C1451%2C891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpspllWI2o">Iceland / youtube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The supermarket chain Iceland has been denied clearance to screen its <a href="https://youtu.be/JdpspllWI2o">Christmas advert</a> on British television. Consisting mainly of Greenpeace’s short “<a href="https://youtu.be/TQQXstNh45g">Rang-tan</a>” animation, the ad highlights Iceland’s commitment to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/10/iceland-to-be-first-uk-supermarket-to-cut-palm-oil-from-own-brand-products">eliminate palm oil</a> from its own-brand products. According to the advertising clearing body, <a href="https://www.clearcast.co.uk/blog/clearcasts-md-responds-to-coverage-of-their-decision-not-to-clear-the-iceland-ad/">Clearcast</a>, it was disallowed not because of its content, but because of its connection with Greenpeace, a “body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature”.</p>
<p>Iceland <a href="https://twitter.com/IcelandFoods/status/1060774234266484737">reacted swiftly</a>, tweeting that its ad had been “banned” from television because it was “<a href="https://twitter.com/IcelandFoods/status/1061204817257918464">seen to be in support of a political issue</a>”. The tweet was picked up by mainstream media such as the Guardian, which ran <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/nov/09/iceland-christmas-tv-ad-banned-political-greenpeace-orangutan">the headline</a>: “Iceland’s Christmas advert banned for being too political.” Furious responses followed, with nearly 100,000 people sharing Iceland’s original tweet and over 650,000 <a href="https://www.change.org/p/release-iceland-s-banned-christmas-advert-on-tv-nopalmoilchristmas">petitioning</a> Clearcast to reverse its decision.</p>
<p>Most of these responses revolve around the (inaccurate but powerful) claim that Iceland’s ad was “banned” for being “political”. How, ask critics, could highlighting the destruction of the rainforest be political? How could saving orangutans be anything but worthwhile? As <a href="https://twitter.com/MaggieMski/status/1061406777131126784">one tweet</a> put it, “since when is outrage about losing such beautiful animals political?”</p>
<p>Such responses portray environmental and conservation causes as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01621.x">above politics</a>: as built on unquestionable, universal truths. As such, they are too important to be used for petty point-scoring. In this view, Iceland’s ad reveals a devastating apolitical reality that the world needs to see and respond to. </p>
<h2>People live in those forests too</h2>
<p>But show the same footage to rural communities on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, where most palm oil is produced, and we may well get a different response. Many would see the ad’s message as entirely political, for several reasons.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245531/original/file-20181114-194519-6pubic.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A village in Malaysian Borneo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liana Chua</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The forests that the ad exhorts viewers to save are also these people’s homes: places filled with specific histories, social relations, assets and other living beings. But the <a href="http://press.anu.edu.au/?p=123701">relationships</a> that forest dwellers have to these places are not always understood or recognised by the state or conservation bodies. Wildlife protection laws and the expansion of protected areas – often driven by conservation initiatives – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/Beyond-the-Sacred-Forest/">have complicated</a> the situation. These have turned access to forests and their resources into highly political issues.</p>
<p>Many rural villagers across Indonesia and Malaysia also rely on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2017.1311867?journalCode=fjps20">small-scale cultivation of oil palm</a> (the tree which produces palm oil) for their livelihoods. Some smallholders work for or in partnership with oil palm companies, and others operate independently. While participation in the industry has <a href="https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/infobrief/6842-infobrief.pdf">generated its own problems</a>, it has also generated income and infrastructure in rural areas. Such smallholders will be rightly concerned about the damaging effects of attacks on palm oil on their futures, and their access to necessities like food and medicine.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245533/original/file-20181114-194497-146zvt6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not so popular with local humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">jeep2499/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Iceland ad is also a classic example of how life is unequally valued across the global political terrain. In certain parts of Borneo and Sumatra, where my team and I are currently conducting <a href="https://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/Projects/The-global-lives-of-the-orangutan-GLO">research</a>, many forest residents see orangutans as dangerous and not particularly special creatures that can damage their crops and livelihoods. Yet they are acutely aware that many well-meaning foreigners would privilege the well-being of orangutans over their own. Why, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/454159b">they ask</a>, do governments, NGOs and tourists put so much time and money into saving this one animal when people like us are struggling to get by?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-boycott-could-actually-increase-deforestation-sustainable-products-are-the-solution-106733">Palm oil boycott could actually increase deforestation – sustainable products are the solution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Humans’ and ‘nature’ cannot be easily separated</h2>
<p>Such concerns reveal a mismatch between Iceland’s conservation message and the experiences of rural people in Borneo and Sumatra. In Greenpeace’s film, humans are either intruders (represented by bulldozers) in the pristine rainforest home of the orangutan, or the “good guys” (represented by the girl) who are going to save them. This vision is built on a historically <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Beyond_Nature_and_Culture.html?id=lGulMQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Western understanding</a> of the world that treats “humans” and “nature” as fundamentally separate. But what it blots out are the people who live in and around the same forests, for whom such a separation is much harder – and by no means apolitical.</p>
<p>The idea that environmental and conservation causes are above politics thus makes sense only from a particular Western perspective – one built around an image of the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-wilderness-fetish-is-bad-for-people-and-for-the-planet">forest-as-wilderness</a> that is not universally shared. The depiction of such causes as apolitical has facilitated their spread across the world, while shielding them from scrutiny and critique. Yet scrutiny and critique can reveal significant problems and oversimplifications in Iceland’s ad.</p>
<p>The “palm oil kills orangutans” narrative, for example, sidesteps the fact that deforestation is only one of several factors driving orangutan extinction. Other <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0027491">key drivers</a> include hunting and poaching, though these won’t be solved by oil palm activism. And as various <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iceland-advert-banned-christmas">analysts</a> have pointed out, simply boycotting palm oil could <a href="https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-boycott-could-actually-increase-deforestation-sustainable-products-are-the-solution-106733">ultimately backfire</a>. A collapse in global demand would disproportionately affect smallholders, generating further poverty and resentment. It could also encourage the cultivation of other ecologically-damaging crops such as soy or rapeseed, which would <a href="https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2018.11.en">displace rather than reduce</a> forest conversion and biodiversity loss – an unfortunate geopolitical outcome.</p>
<p>None of this mitigates the need to address the problems of environmental destruction and extinction. And it’s no bad thing that Iceland’s ad has helped raise awareness of these issues. But conservation isn’t a black-and-white morality tale, and depicting the advert’s message as apolitical is both misleading and counterproductive. For the sake of both orangutans and the people who share their forests, we need fewer emotive simplifications and more acknowledgement of the complex political realities at stake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liana Chua receives funding from the Arcus Foundation and the European Research Council (Starting Grant no. 758494).</span></em></p>Calls to ban palm oil could get a very different response among people who live in the same forests as orangutans.Liana Chua, Reader in Anthropology, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/958742018-05-03T20:23:43Z2018-05-03T20:23:43ZChina-backed Sumatran dam threatens the rarest ape in the world<p>The plan to build a massive hydropower dam in Sumatra as part of China’s immense <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook45p/ChinasRoad">Belt and Road Initiative</a> threatens the habitat of the rarest ape in the world, which has only 800 remaining members. </p>
<p>This is merely the beginning of an <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/442.full">avalanche of environmental crises</a> and broader social and economic risks that will be provoked by the BRI scheme.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-a-new-species-of-orangutan-in-northern-sumatra-86843">How we discovered a new species of orangutan in northern Sumatra</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The orangutan’s story began in November 2017, when scientists made a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-a-new-species-of-orangutan-in-northern-sumatra-86843">stunning announcement</a>: they had discovered a seventh species of Great Ape, called the Tapanuli Orangutan, in a remote corner of Sumatra, Indonesia. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.04.082">an article</a> published in Current Biology today, my colleagues and I show that this ape is perilously close to extinction – and that a Chinese-sponsored megaproject could be the final nail in its coffin.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217363/original/file-20180502-153900-1hf6gcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=942&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Forest clearing for the Chinese-funded development has already begun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sumatran Orangutan Society</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ambitious but ‘nightmarishly complicated’</h2>
<p>The BRI is an ambitious but nightmarishly complicated venture, and far less organised than many believe. The hundreds of road, port, rail, and energy projects will ultimately span some 70 nations across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region. It will link those nations economically and often geopolitically to China, while catalysing sweeping expansion of land-use and extractive industries, and will have myriad knock-on effects. </p>
<p>Up to 2015, the hundreds of BRI projects were reviewed by the powerful <a href="http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/mfndrc/">National Development and Reform Commission</a>, which is directly under China’s State Council. Many observers have assumed that the NDRC will help coordinate the projects, but the only real leverage they have is over projects funded by the big Chinese policy banks – the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Development_Bank">China Development Bank</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exim_Bank_of_China">Export-Import Bank of China</a> – which they directly control. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217365/original/file-20180502-153895-8e3ujj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">China’s Belt & Road Initiative will sweep across some 70 nations in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mercator Institute for China Studies</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most big projects – many of which are cross-national – will have a mix of funding from various sources and nations, meaning that no single entity will be in charge or ultimately responsible. An informed colleague in China describes this model as “anarchy”. </p>
<h2>Tapanuli Orangutan</h2>
<p>The dangerous potential of the BRI becomes apparent when one examines the Tapanuli Orangutan. With fewer than 800 individuals, it is one of the rarest animals on Earth. It survives in just a speck of rainforest, less than a tenth the size of Sydney, that is being eroded by illegal deforestation, logging, and poaching. </p>
<p>All of these threats <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-global-road-building-explosion-is-shattering-nature-70489">propagate around roads</a>. When a new road appears, the ape usually disappears, along with many other rare species sharing its habitat, such as Hornbills and the endangered Sumatran Tiger.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217361/original/file-20180502-153908-n4ubed.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Tapanuli Orangutan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maxime Aliaga</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most imminent threat to the ape is a <a href="http://www.batangtoru.org/threats/hydro-electric-dam/">US$1.6 billion hydropower project</a> that Sinohydro (China’s state-owned hydroelectric corporation) intends to build with funding from the Bank of China and other Chinese financiers. If the project proceeds as planned, it will flood the heart of the ape’s habitat and crisscross the remainder with many new roads and powerline clearings. </p>
<p>It’s a recipe for ecological Armageddon for one of our closest living relatives. Other major lenders such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank aren’t touching the project, but that isn’t slowing down China’s developers. </p>
<h2>What environmental safeguards?</h2>
<p>China has produced a small flood of documents describing <a href="https://foe.org/resources/investing-green-belt-road-assessing-implementation-chinas-green-credit-guidelines-abroad/">sustainable lending principles</a> for its banks and <a href="https://www.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/wcm.files/upload/CMSydylgw/201705/201705161104041.pd">broad environmental and social safeguards</a> for the BRI, but I believe many of these documents are mere paper tigers or “greenwashing” designed to quell anxieties.</p>
<p>According to insiders, a heated debate in Beijing right now revolves around eco-safeguards for the BRI. Big corporations (with international ambitions and assets that overseas courts can confiscate) want clear guidelines to minimise their liability. Smaller companies, of which there are many, want the weakest standards possible. </p>
<p>The argument isn’t settled yet, but it’s clear that the Chinese government doesn’t want to exclude its thousands of smaller companies from the potential BRI riches. Most likely, it will do what it has in the past: issue lofty guidelines that a few Chinese companies will attempt to abide by, but that most will ignore. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BtbKfC9HVYk?wmode=transparent&start=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Greater Leuser Ecosystem in northern Sumatra is the last place on Earth where Orangutans, Tigers, Elephants and Rhinos still persist together.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stacked deck</h2>
<p>There are three alarming realities about China, of special relevance to the BRI.</p>
<p>First, China’s explosive economic growth has arisen from giving its overseas corporations and financiers enormous freedom. Opportunism, graft and corruption are embedded, and they are unlikely to yield economically, socially or environmentally equitable development for their host nations. I detailed many of these specifics in <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-dark-legacy-of-chinas-drive-for-global-resources">an article</a> published by Yale University last year.</p>
<p>Second, China is experiencing a perfect storm of trends that ensures the harsher realities of the BRI are not publicly aired or even understood in China. China has a notoriously closed domestic media – <a href="https://asiancorrespondent.com/2018/04/china-model-threatens-press-freedom-in-asia-pacific/#wvflezrfe5mdMDjr.97">ranked near the bottom</a> in press freedom globally – that is intolerant of government criticism. </p>
<p>Beyond this, the BRI is the signature enterprise of President Xi Jinping, who has become the de-facto ruler of China for life. Thanks to President Xi, the BRI is now <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-silkroad/pressure-on-as-xis-belt-and-road-enshrined-in-chinese-party-charter-idUSKBN1CT1IW">formally enshrined</a> in the constitution of China’s Communist Party, making it a crime for any Chinese national to criticise the program. This has had an obvious chilling effect on public discourse. Indeed, I have had Chinese colleagues withdraw as coauthors of scientific papers that were even mildly critical of the BRI.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217367/original/file-20180502-153900-1wm3oyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Xi Jinpeng at the 19th People’s Congress, where the BRI was formally inscribed into China’s national constitution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foreign Policy Journal</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Third, China is becoming increasingly heavy-handed internationally, willing to overtly bully or covertly pull strings to achieve its objectives. Professor Clive Hamilton of Charles Sturt University has warned that <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/australian-universities-fear-offending-chinese-backers-clive-hamilton/news-story/984a9cdadc8f9f7b1d16d47a8d1645cd">Australia has become a target</a> for Chinese attempts to stifle criticism. </p>
<h2>Remember the ape</h2>
<p>It is time for a clarion call for greater caution. While led by China, the BRI will also involve large financial commitments from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment_Bank">more than 60 nations</a> that are parties to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, including Australia and many other Western nations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-growing-footprint-on-the-globe-threatens-to-trample-the-natural-world-88312">China’s growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We all have a giant stake in the Belt and Road Initiative. It will bring sizeable economic gains for some, but in nearly 40 years of working internationally, I have never seen a program that raises more red flags.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95874/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Laurance receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other scientific and philanthropic organisations. He is director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science at James Cook University, and founder and director of ALERT--the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers.
</span></em></p>A US$1.6 billion dollar dam in Sumatra threatens the recently discovered and desperately imperilled Tapanuli Orangutan.Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900232018-01-15T06:27:43Z2018-01-15T06:27:43ZMore research needed for responsible peatland management in Indonesia<p>Indonesian peatland researchers recently gathered in Bogor, Indonesia, to examine the effectiveness of the latest government regulation on peatlands. We found some shortcomings, one being that the regulation isn’t well supported by scientific evidence. </p>
<p>The Indonesian government declared that the area of peatlands burnt <a href="http://ppid.menlhk.go.id/siaran_pers/browse/810">in 2017 declined significantly</a> compared to previous years. After a disastrous fire <a href="https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20151030133801-20-88437/bnpb-kebakaran-hutan-2015-seluas-32-wilayah-dki-jakarta">two years ago</a>, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry urged plantations to block canals and to build water retention basins and wells in peatlands.</p>
<p>Additionally, the government attempted to restore degraded peatlands by issuing <a href="http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2016/12/06/11592021/pemerintah.terbitkan.revisi.pp.perlindungan.gambut">Government Regulation (PP) No. 57/2016</a>, which amended a 2014 regulation on the conservation and management of peat ecosystems. </p>
<p>One of the articles in the 2016 regulation states that a managed peat ecosystem is considered to be degraded if its water table is deeper than 40 centimetres from the surface of the peatland at a managed location. This regulation was meant to keep the peat moist to protect it from fire during the dry season. This also means that the water table in managed peatlands should be maintained at 40cm all year round.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816207001130">40cm criterion</a> was arbitrarily chosen. The regulation was set without involving or consulting academics and is not supported by adequate research and strong scientific evidence. </p>
<p>The implementation of this regulation should also consider the socio-economic balance between the communities and the environment surrounding peatlands.</p>
<p>Responding to this new regulation, academics and peatland practitioners organised a focus group discussion in Bogor on December 14, 2017, to discuss the best way to manage peat responsibly. </p>
<p>Peatlands are one of the largest carbon sinks in the Earth’s land ecosystem. And Indonesia has one of the largest peatlands in the tropics, with a recent estimate of 13.2 million hectares. Before the 1990s, peatlands were considered marginal lands and exploited without environmental concerns.</p>
<p>In 1995, the late President Soeharto directed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Rice_Project_(Kalimantan)">Mega Rice Project</a>, which developed 1 million hectares of peatlands in Central Kalimantan for rice cultivation. The project failed. Rice did not grow and the heavily drained peats were degraded, fuelling fires during extended dry seasons.</p>
<h2>Scientific gap</h2>
<p>With increasing awareness of climate change issues – especially greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural sectors and land and forest fires – peat management has become a controversial issue in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Peat has two main functions: environmental services (water storage, carbon storage and biodiversity preservation) and agricultural production that supports the livelihood of farmers. </p>
<p>Science and research may be able to drive <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-can-drive-the-sustainability-of-our-precious-soils-water-and-oceans-43641">responsible management</a> of our peatlands.</p>
<p>While there has been much research on peatlands in Indonesia, most international research focused heavily on <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-011-9643-2">deforestation</a>, <a href="https://www.biogeosciences.net/7/1505/2010/">greenhouse gas emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01131">peat fires</a>. We need research on effective peatland management that addresses the environmental issues and regulations.</p>
<p>Balanced research should also focus on good peat management practices that minimise its environmental impacts, and on effective water management that reduces the risk of fire. </p>
<p>From the discussion in Bogor, we identified scientific gaps in peat management:</p>
<h2>1. Peatland mapping</h2>
<p>Peatlands in Indonesia have been mapped at a rough scale of 1:250,000, indicating an area of about 13.2 million hectares. This map cannot be used for management and the implementation of PP 57. </p>
<p>For operational purposes, a scale of 1:50,000 or finer is needed. This fine-scale map needs to be generated using an accurate, cost-effective and rapid method. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, many were convinced that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar">Lidar</a>, aerial laser surveying that is used commercially, was the best method for <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/10/22/high-resolution-map-protect-nation-s-peatland.html">mapping</a> the extent and thickness of peat. </p>
<p>However, lidar operation throughout the country is costly. Furthermore, Lidar only measures the surface elevation of the ground and cannot detect directly the extent and thickness of peats. </p>
<p>Research from the University of Sydney and IPB has developed an <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-11-digital-carbon-storage-tropical-peatlands.html">Open Digital Mapping</a> methodology, which combines field measurements and freely available satellite images. Peat extent and thickness can be mapped using machine-learning algorithms. This methodology, recently published in an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001670611731306X">international journal</a>, is cost-effective as it uses open data in an open-source computing environment. </p>
<p>This method has been successfully evaluated and potentially can be up-scaled to map peatlands for the whole of Indonesia.</p>
<h2>2. Leading commodities and land degradation</h2>
<p>There have been many studies on strategic commodities in peatlands, especially food and cash crops, specifically oil palm. With the new regulation restricting oil palm plantation development, integrated cross-disciplinary studies need to be developed to seek new commodities that can support small-scale farmers. For example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paludiculture">paludiculture</a> (farming in swamps) with market access needs to be developed.</p>
<p>The environmental impacts of land use change have to be assessed holistically. Agricultural land use in peatlands is often thought to be linked with the draining of peats, which led to peat degradation and vulnerability to fire. As a result, the use of peatlands is associated with increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere. </p>
<p>Peatland degradation is a long process and is not entirely caused by the current land use. Land degradation has happened at least since the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmigration_program">transmigration</a> program during the Dutch colonial period and continued since the 1970s with the expansion of forest concession areas.</p>
<h2>3. Greenhouse gas emissions and groundwater level</h2>
<p>Land use on peatlands is often blamed for increased greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sectors. No doubt agricultural activities contribute to oxidation of organic matter. But the CO<sub>2</sub> emission rates need to be fully examined, especially as a result of: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Peat subsidence, which is often interpreted as peat <a href="https://www.biogeosciences.net/9/1053/2012/">loss</a> contributing to CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. The subsidence process depends on the peat compaction and water level. Subsidence is not linear with time. In other words, subsidence occurred rapidly at the beginning of land conversion and its rate will decrease with time. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706106002503">study</a> in Central Kalimantan demonstrated that compaction is the main cause of the peat dome collapse.</p></li>
<li><p>The net greenhouse gas emission is a balance between sequestration (storage) and decomposition (breakdown) of organic matter. Emission rates fluctuate from morning to day and night, and from day to day. Most studies only measure the emission rates at a given time once a month. To account for all these variations, we need a fully integrated system that can monitor these fluxes over a long time.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The groundwater level set by Regulation No. 57/2016 is thought to lack a strong <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0341816207001130">scientific evidence</a> base. Groundwater level fluctuates seasonally with rainfall and drainage. It doesn’t necessarily reflect the peat’s moisture condition. In addition, the impact of a relatively high water table on plant growth needs to be further established. </p>
<p>The water content of the surface peat may be more indicative of the moisture status of peat. There is a critical water content at which peat becomes hydrophobic (difficult to rewet), and this point needs to be well researched and established. </p>
<p>Most studies only consider climate-driven prolonged drought as the driver for wildfires in the humid tropics. Our study shows that a simple <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192314003165">Drought Index</a> – which can be calculated from rainfall data, groundwater height level and groundwater condition – can serve as a better indicator of forest fire risk. Another study shows the importance of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep06112">hydrology</a> in predicting wildfires in Kalimantan, which can be used as a tool to improve planning and strategies to adapt to climate change. </p>
<h2>The bottom-up approach</h2>
<p>The current peat restoration process is a top-down approach by issuing new regulations. PP 57 is difficult to implement and has had negative reactions from the agriculture community. For a process to be fully adopted and well received by landholders and academics, it needs to be bottom-up and supported by well-grounded research. </p>
<p>The ideal approach includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Water management that optimises the water supply to maintain peat’s moisture condition and support plant growth, particularly in the dry season.</p></li>
<li><p>Maintaining groundwater levels not deeper than 80cm, measured from the peat surface. Peat should be always maintained in a moist condition so it wets up easily. Hydrology models to monitor drought and susceptibility can help predict the risk of fire.</p></li>
<li><p>Managing peatland responsibly with best management practices that support plant growth and livelihoods without causing land degradation and fires. These practices involve good water management, monitoring and maintaining moist peat condition, proper fertilisation, establishing cover crops, using adapted plant varieties, etc. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>From all that, we need a more comprehensive research program that includes technology adaptation, community development and co-operation between communities, farmers, business owners and the government. The outcomes can then be used to formulate a responsible peatland development program in Indonesia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Budiman Minasny receives fund from Australia Indonesia Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Budi Indra Setiawan, Dian Fiantis, dan Supiandi Sabiham tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>A balanced research program should focus on good and rational peat management efforts that minimise environmental impacts, and on water regulation that reduces the risk of fire.Supiandi Sabiham, Professor of Land Resource Management, IPB UniversityBudi Indra Setiawan, Professor of Agricultural Technology, IPB UniversityBudiman Minasny, Professor in Soil-Landscape Modelling, University of SydneyDian Fiantis, Professor of Soil Science, Universitas AndalasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800042017-08-10T20:06:19Z2017-08-10T20:06:19ZPeople, palm oil, pulp and planet: four perspectives on Indonesia’s fire-stricken peatlands<p>Peat means different things to different people. To many Irish people, it means fuel. To the Scottish, it adds a smoky flavour to their whisky. Indonesia’s peatlands, meanwhile, are widely known as the home of orangutans, the palm oil industry, and the persistent fires that cause the infamous <a href="https://theconversation.com/southeast-asian-smoke-warns-of-never-ending-fires-15499">Southeast Asian haze</a>. </p>
<p>Indonesians, and other people with ties to these peatlands, have a range of perspectives on the value of peat – both commercial and otherwise.</p>
<p>Here we explore them through the eyes of four fictitious but representative characters. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-plywood-started-the-destruction-of-indonesias-forests-33087">How plywood started the destruction of Indonesia’s forests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The smallholder in rural Sumatra</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is my land. As migrants from Java, my family now have our own house and our own crops. In some years there have been terrible fires, with smoke so thick we can’t even see the end of our street, and all of our food crops burn. But in other years, the rice and corn grow well, my family eat fish every day, my wife smiles, and our children grow tall.</em></p>
<p><em>In Java we had no land of our own, and I worked as a farm labourer. Here in Sumatra we have our own peatland. It is different from Javanese soil but we work hard to tend our crops, watering them in the dry season and protecting them from fire.</em> </p>
<p><em>A big palm oil company has trained me and 50 other men from our village in firefighting. We have uniforms and water-holding backpacks, and I have learned about when the fire will come. They are helping us to protect our palms, and their own palms, of course. My palms are still young, but in a few years I will sell the palm oil fruit to the company, and then my boys can go to high school in town – as long as the palms don’t burn, God willing.</em></p>
<p><em>Floods are a harder problem. How can I protect my land? The government dug canals to drain the peatland before we came, but they are not big enough to hold all the water that comes from the heavens and the floods come more and more often.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The official in Jakarta</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is our burden. Indonesia has fertile land, rich oceans… and then there are the peatlands. It is always either too wet to use, or so dry that it burns.</em></p>
<p><em>Other Southeast Asian governments want us to end the fires and haze single-handed, but Indonesia isn’t the only one to blame; peatland fires are a regional problem.</em></p>
<p><em>We are caught between domestic and international pressures. Develop our peatlands to lift our people out of poverty, or preserve them for orangutans and carbon storage. Of course, the Indonesian people are my priority.</em></p>
<p><em>When I studied agriculture at university in Brisbane in the 1990s, my classmates were a little fuzzy about where Indonesia is, let alone what happens here. Now, when our ministry visits Canberra, I feel sad to see “Palm Oil Free” displayed prominently on supermarket products. Westerners don’t understand that not all palm oil is grown on peatlands, that it is a healthy oil and a highly efficient crop perfectly suited to tropical conditions.</em></p>
<p><em>Oil palms can be <a href="http://aciar.gov.au/publication/pr144">grown sustainably</a> and have <a href="https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-politics-impede-sustainability-in-southeast-asia-57647">helped many farmers out of poverty</a>. Nearly half of Indonesia’s palm oil is sourced from smallholders, and losing that income can really hurt them.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A palm growing on peatland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andri Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Our ministry is working hard to ensure that Indonesia develops our peatlands sustainably, restoring and rewetting degraded areas and working with the local people to find economic uses for wet peat. My son wants to follow in my footsteps and work on peatlands too, and has applied to study sustainable development at university in Singapore.</em> </p>
<p><em>So while peatlands are currently a source of national embarrassment, many minds are focused on transforming them into the goose that lays the golden egg for Indonesia.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-palm-oil-must-consider-people-too-20443">Sustainable palm oil must consider people too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The businessperson in Singapore</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is good, profitable land. For too long we have considered it wasteland – too wet, too far away. But technology from peat-rich countries like Finland and Canada is helping us to use tropical peatlands for people.</em></p>
<p><em>My pulp and paper company has half of its plantations on peatlands, which produce more than a third of our pulpwood. My silviculture (forest management) team works closely with my environmental manager and PR team to ensure that our plantations are grown according to best practice, and that our shareholders and clients know it.</em> </p>
<p><em>The community benefits in the regions around our plantations are easy to see. The village that my parents came from has electricity now, and big modern houses have replaced the old wooden ones. We have paved the road and our taxes support the government’s new health centre and primary school.</em> </p>
<p><em>We are not a big company like <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/">Asia Pulp and Paper</a>, which can afford to <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/news-media/press-releases/asia-pulp-paper-commits-first-ever-retirement-commercial-plantations-tropical-peatland-cut-carbon-emissions">retire part of the estate on peatlands</a>, but we do try to abide by the <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2011/06/indonesia%E2%80%99s-ambitious-forest-moratorium-moves-forward">2011 moratorium</a> on new plantations on peatlands, despite <a href="http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/indonesia_moratorium_on_new_forest_concessions.pdf">repeated</a> <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/05/6-years-after-moratorium-satellite-data-shows-indonesia%E2%80%99s-tropical-forests-remain">scepticism</a> from environmental groups. Anyway, the moratorium is a Presidential Instruction, and so is flexibly applied.</em></p>
<p><em>The Indonesian government doesn’t want any more fires, and neither do we – we don’t want our plantations to burn! But the new regulations that require <a href="http://database.v-c-s.org/sites/v-c-s.org/files/140725_SNP%20Peat%20Rewettting%20Project%20-%20CCB%20PDD%20-%20V06.pdf">rewetting</a> the peat are a big challenge for us. What will grow in wet peatland?</em> </p>
<p><em>I lie awake at night worrying about my company’s future. What species can we diversify into? Should we move away from pulp and into <a href="http://arena.gov.au/about/what-is-renewable-energy/bioenergy/">bioenergy</a>? Are we putting enough money into R&D? Should I spend more on lobbying? My son is studying for an MBA in the United States, but will there still be a profitable business for him to join when he graduates?</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The orangutan carer</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A youngster in the forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Catanzariti/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>We rescued Fi Fi from an area that used to be peatland forest but has been cleared for palm plantations. With no food and nowhere to make a nest, Fi Fi and her mother gradually got weaker and weaker, until workers at the plantation noticed and called us. The mother died before we could help her.</em> </p>
<p><em>That was nine months ago, and I’ve been caring for Fi Fi around the clock since then in a babysitting team with my friend Nurmala. Fi Fi loves cuddles, milk and fruit, just like my children did at her age.</em> </p>
<p><em>It is a good job, and we have a great team. Everyone is passionate about protecting the orangutans and the forest. We would like to be able to release Fi Fi once she has learned all her forest skills. Orangutans can look after themselves from about seven years old. But they need a lot of space.</em> </p>
<p><em>Peatland fires, logging and oil palm planting destroy more forest every year, so places for Fi Fi to be released are hard to find. My brothers and sisters are all happy to stay living near our family home, and when I’m not here looking after Fi Fi, I always have my nieces and nephews on my knee.</em> </p>
<p><em>I love to have them close, but when the dry season fires come and the haze is so thick I can’t even see my brother’s house across the street, I sometimes wish they had flown a bit further from the nest. Last year we were in and out of the health clinic for a month with my niece’s breathing problems.</em></p>
<p><em>I spend all my time caring for precious little ones – both human and orangutan – but the issues themselves are too big for me to fight.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-news-for-the-only-place-on-earth-where-tigers-rhinos-orangutans-and-elephants-live-together-58777">Good news for the only place on Earth where tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants live together</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A way forward?</h2>
<p>People are central to the problem of tropical peatland fires. In their natural state, tropical peat swamp forests are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225152862_Restoration_Ecology_of_Lowland_Tropical_Peatlands_in_Southeast_Asia_Current_Knowledge_and_Future_Research_Directions">too wet to burn</a>. Drainage, installed by people for forestry, palm oil, roads, mining and other development, lowers the water table and dries out the peat. Many peat fires smoulder for months, from the start of dry season in July until the monsoon returns in November.</p>
<p>These fires have a wide range of negative effects: on <a href="https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/11711/2016/acp-16-11711-2016.pdf">local health</a>, <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/776101467990969768/The-cost-of-fire-an-economic-analysis-of-Indonesia-s-2015-fire-crisis">regional economies</a> and the <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00599518/document">global carbon cycle</a>. Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has created a new <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-haze-peatlands-idUSKCN0US0C620160114">Peatland Restoration Agency</a>, and announced policies to restrict burning and draining of the peat beyond a maximum water table depth of 40cm below the surface. However, action is still disjointed and ministries are, at times, working at cross purposes. </p>
<p>The truth is that only when enough people value wet peatlands will the fires be prevented. Wet peatlands are great for orangutans and the global climate, but how about local smallholders, government officials and business investors? Saving peatlands will require creating value for these people too.</p>
<p>What crops can be profitably grown with a water table high enough to prevent burning? How can smallholders tap into a carbon trading market? Rather than cutting trees to send their children to school, can they earn more money by protecting the carbon stored in peat? Can villagers be empowered to make a better living from ecotourism than illegal logging? </p>
<p>Humans are integral to Indonesia’s tropical peatlands. And they must be at the centre of the solutions too. Otherwise the fires will keep burning – and none of the four people whose stories we’ve heard want that. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Laura Graham of the <a href="http://www.orangutan.or.id/">Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation</a> and Niken Sakuntaladewi, a researcher with the <a href="http://www.worldagroforestry.org/">World Agroforestry Centre</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Grover receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Edis has received funding from, and currently works for, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research,</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Sukamta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indonesian peatlands are important to many people: farmers, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and conservationists. But preserving this value for everyone will mean listening to everyone’s concerns.Samantha Grover, Research Fellow, Soil Science, La Trobe UniversityLinda Sukamta, Lecturer, Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe UniversityRobert Edis, Soil Scientist, Australian Centre for International Agricultural ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/820752017-08-09T19:44:45Z2017-08-09T19:44:45ZOld teeth from a rediscovered cave show humans were in Indonesia more than 63,000 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181330/original/file-20170808-22960-1nnwweq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lida Ajer cave - a small but well decorated front entrance.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Julien Louys</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern humans were present in Southeast Asia about 20,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature23452">published in Nature today</a>.</p>
<p>An international research team led by Macquarie University applied new archaeological techniques to a longstanding question - were the human teeth discovered more than 120 years ago from Lida Ajer cave really modern human? The techniques allowed us to identify and date ancient human teeth from this Sumatran cave.</p>
<p>These teeth are the key to understanding when humans first travelled through the region, and provide the first evidence of modern humans in rainforests. It was a journey that eventually led humans to Australia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new-history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021">Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An early discovery</h2>
<p>The Lida Ajer cave, in the Padang Highlands of Sumatra, was originally excavated in the late 1880s by the Dutch scientist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eugene-Dubois">Eugene Dubois</a>, who found two human teeth. He was already famous for finding “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Java-man">Java Man</a>”, the first evidence of a missing link between humans and other great apes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181039/original/file-20170804-29775-1q88yjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lida Ajer modern human tooth (left top) with its corresponding scanned image (left bottom) compared to an orangutan tooth (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tanya Smith and Rokus Awe Due</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the evidence had been ignored when considering the path of human dispersal out of Africa and across to Asia, mostly because ofr doubts over the age and identification of the teeth.</p>
<p>Our study aimed to establish a solid age for the evidence and test whether the teeth did indeed belong to a modern human.</p>
<p>The hardest part was trying to find the cave site again, almost 120 years on from Dubois’s excavation. We only had a sketch of the cave and a rough map from a copy of Dubois’ original field notebook. It took myself, Rokus Awe Due from the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology, and many locals more than a week of constant searching.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181493/original/file-20170809-26039-o66l9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dubois’ field sketches of Lida Ajer cave location copied directly from his field notebook. His rough sketch of the cave location close to Payakumbuh village has annotations added to make the features clearer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naturalis museum, the Netherlands/Kira Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We stumbled across the cave almost by accident. The minute I saw a large rock column in the entrance, I knew we had found the cave dug by Dubois many years earlier. It was important to find the cave again to sample the sediments in which the fossils were found. That way we could make sure that resulting age was reliable.</p>
<h2>Dating the teeth</h2>
<p>To establish the importance of this evidence we used advanced modern dating techniques and state-of-the-art imaging methods to confirm the age and identity of the teeth. These techniques would not have been available to Dubois. </p>
<p>The tooth analysis allowed us to look at the internal structure of the teeth, exposing the enamel thickness and the junctions between the enamel and dentine. These junctions are crucial for distinguishing modern human teeth from other ape teeth such as orangutans, and other much older human species.</p>
<p>We applied a range of different dating techniques (luminescence, uranium series and electron spin resonance dating) to improve the accuracy of the fossil age. </p>
<p>As the techniques measure different events, such as the last exposure to sunlight and the timing that cave rock deposits were laid down, any agreement between techniques indicates the resulting age is likely to be solid. </p>
<p>Our results indicate that the human teeth were laid down in the cave between 73,000 and 63,000 years ago, implying that modern humans were living on the landscape at that time. </p>
<h2>A rainforest route</h2>
<p>The evidence from the fossils in the cave suggests that the modern humans were living in a rainforest environment. This is surprising because the oldest previous evidence of rainforest use by modern humans in Southeast Asia was from 45,000 years ago.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d8171021.653967908!2d96.11135065110386!3d-0.3185224354204432!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x0%3A0x0!2zMMKwMTknMDYuNyJTIDEwMMKwMzUnMzcuNiJF!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sau!4v1502242279217" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>This cave site, shown on the map above, is not within the accepted route of modern humans dispersing through this region, which is considered to be more to the east of Sumatra or closer to Borneo. It was thought that modern humans preferred a coastal route and yet we now have evidence of modern humans inland in western Sumatra.</p>
<p>One of the co-authors on this study is Julien Louys, a palaeontologist currently at Griffith University. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Living in dense rainforests requires complex hunting technology and knowledge that the first humans out of Africa would not have possessed and yet we find evidence of modern humans in rainforests as soon as they arrived in Southeast Asia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps the conditions at the coast were not suitable for survival? It’s hard to imagine what the coast of Sumatra would have looked like. The sea level would have been between <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2000.00489.x/abstract">lower than today</a> so this evidence would now be under water.</p>
<p>But we do know that surviving in a rainforest is difficult as it requires complex planning to find and secure enough food. The Lida Ajer evidence indicates that by at least 60,000 years ago, modern humans were capable of rising to this challenge. </p>
<h2>And on to Australia</h2>
<p>So what does this mean for the first Australians? If modern humans first arrived in Southeast Asia nearly 20,000 years earlier than previously accepted, then why did they wait until 60,000-50,000 years ago before crossing over to Australia, as was <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277379194900809">previously thought</a>?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lengthy-childhood-of-endangered-orangutans-is-written-in-their-teeth-77564">The lengthy childhood of endangered orangutans is written in their teeth</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our study suggests that modern humans could potentially have made the crossing earlier. <a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new-history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021">Recent work</a> from northern Australia confirms this to be true, with evidence that humans have been living in the Madjedbebe cave site as early as 65,000 years ago.</p>
<p>So were the first Australasians much quicker at getting from Africa to Asia, much better at adapting to new environments, and much better at exploring new areas than we previously thought? </p>
<p>This evidence seems to suggests so, and indicates that Southeast Asian caves may have many more surprises left to uncover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kira Westaway receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery grants DP1093049</span></em></p>The evidence of a much earlier presence of humans in Indonesia was found more than 100 years ago. But only now has the age of the fossil teeth been accurately dated.Kira Westaway, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/587772016-05-05T04:40:34Z2016-05-05T04:40:34ZGood news for the only place on Earth where tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants live together<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121151/original/image-20160504-6918-1i5gp73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sumatra's tigers are among the species that will benefit from a new land-clearing moratorium in Leuser's forests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">dangdumrong/Shutterstock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conservationists and environmental scientists are used to bad news. So when there’s some really good news, it’s important to hear that as well.</p>
<p>While the battle is far from over, there has been a series of breakthroughs in the long-running battle to protect the imperilled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuser_Ecosystem">Leuser ecosystem</a> in northern Sumatra, Indonesia – the last place on Earth where tigers, orangutans, rhinoceros and elephants still live alongside one another.</p>
<p>The government of Aceh Province – which controls most of the Leuser ecosystem and has been subjected to withering criticism for its schemes to destroy much of the region’s forests for oil palm, rice and mining expansion while opening it up with a vast road network through the forest – has agreed to a <a href="http://www.foresthints.news/minister-and-acehnese-leaders-declare-moratorium-on-palm-oil-and-mining-expansion-in-the-leuser-ecosystem">moratorium on new land clearing and mining</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121150/original/image-20160504-27756-1fswcq9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Leuser ecosystem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Global Forest Watch</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is huge news, and it’s clear that both the international community and Indonesia’s federal government have played big roles in making this happen. Indonesian President Joko Widodo deserves a great deal of credit for this accomplishment, which he has been pushing for many months, not just in Aceh but <a href="http://setkab.go.id/en/president-joko-widodo-prepares-moratorium-on-palm-oil-plantation-and-mining-activities/">elsewhere in Indonesia</a> too.</p>
<p>It is the culmination of an <a href="http://alert-conservation.org/leuser-ecosystem/">almost three-year battle</a> by the <a href="http://alert-conservation.org/">Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers</a> (a scientific group I founded and lead) as well as many other dedicated researchers and conservationists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121154/original/image-20160504-6918-qhn8lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sumatran orangutans have lost huge areas of forest habitat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Whitcombe</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Set in stone?</h2>
<p>Moratoria can always be cancelled or weakened, but the chances of that happening seem increasingly remote. In a <a href="http://www.foresthints.news/minister-points-to-leuser-ecosystem-moratorium-in-un-speech-as-proof-of-indonesias-commitment">speech</a> at last month’s signing of the Paris climate agreement in New York, Indonesia’s environment and forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya, underscored her commitment to the Leuser moratorium.</p>
<p>It seems unlikely that she would make this statement at such a high-profile event if there were any significant possibility that the moratorium will collapse.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121157/original/image-20160504-22761-1agmqyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sumatran elephants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gudkov Andrey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And the news gets even better. Last week, Aceh’s deputy governor, Muzakir Manaf, <a href="http://www.foresthints.news/aceh-deputy-governor-ready-to-provide-ground-level-backing-to-leuser-ecosystem-moratorium">declared</a> that he will provide full support for ground-level measures needed to enforce the moratorium.</p>
<p>That is critical, for two reasons. First, it shows that the Aceh government is strongly behind the moratorium. Second, a moratorium is just a piece of paper unless there is real on-the-ground enforcement to ensure that illegal land-clearing, poaching, mining and other activities don’t continue unabated.</p>
<h2>Limiting palm oil</h2>
<p>A final piece of good news is that Nurbaya has <a href="http://www.foresthints.news/entire-process-for-new-palm-oil-permits-ended-confirms-minister">confirmed</a> her intention to halt completely the granting of new permits for oil palm plantations in state-owned forests right across the country.</p>
<p>To be clear, this doesn’t mean that oil palm plantations won’t keep expanding in Indonesia. There are thousands of existing permits encompassing many millions of hectares of native forest. Indeed, Indonesia has previously <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2014/09/10/deforestation-is-inevitable-indonesia-promises-to-deforest-another-14-million-hectares-in-the-next-six-years/">announced plans</a> to clear a further 14 million hectares of native forest by 2020, mostly for oil palm and wood-pulp production.</p>
<p>But at least it means that the avalanche of new oil palm permits is coming to an end, for which both Widodo and Nurbaya deserve credit.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121156/original/image-20160504-25000-16l1ob0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rainforests being felled for oil palm in central Sumatra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Laurance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Not over yet</h2>
<p>The fight to conserve Indonesia’s mega-diverse forests is far from over. The nation’s plans for massive road, dam and mining projects – many in forested areas where they can open a Pandora’s box of problems such as illegal poaching, logging and forest burning – is enough to frighten even the most sober of observers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121158/original/image-20160504-27756-1j7sfja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fewer than 100 Sumatran rhinos survive in the wild, making it one of the world’s rarest species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lynsey Allen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But for today, at least, we can celebrate a very significant victory for conservation, and give credit to the many people who have worked to raise the profile of Leuser, including the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/03/29/leonardo-dicaprio-visits-mt-leuser-national-park.html">visited recently</a>. </p>
<p>Few have had more impact than Ian Singleton, director of the <a href="http://www.sumatranorangutan.org/about-us">Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program</a>. In a <a href="http://www.foresthints.news/fate-of-leuser-ecosystem-depends-on-decision-made-now-warns-conservationist">recent interview</a>, Singleton laid out a remarkably compelling and detailed argument for saving Leuser, and for the surprisingly limited economic benefits its exploitation would generate for the local Sumatran citizens.</p>
<p>The economic and environmental think-tank <a href="http://www.greenomics.org/">Greenomics Indonesia</a> also deserves a big round of applause for its efforts to facilitate this groundbreaking achievement.</p>
<p>But while we’re congratulating ourselves and others, we shouldn’t forget to keep a close eye on Leuser to ensure the promised moratorium really does take effect, and that one of the most important wild places in the world still survives.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of a blog post that originally appeared <a href="http://alert-conservation.org/issues-research-highlights/2016/4/30/new-hope-for-the-last-home-for-tigers-orangutans-rhinos-and-elephants">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58777/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Laurance receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other scientific and philanthropic organisations. He is the director of the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science (TESS) at James Cook University and founder and director of ALERT--the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers & Thinkers.
</span></em></p>The Leuser ecosystem in northern Sumatra is home to some of the world’s rarest and best-loved animals. Thanks to a new government moratorium on land clearing, conservationists have enjoyed a big win.Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/492032015-10-19T19:04:55Z2015-10-19T19:04:55ZDo you want trees with that? How to stop consumer products destroying the rainforests<p>If we are to succeed in tackling climate change, it is vital that we preserve the terrestrial carbon locked up in our forests and soils. Even putting the climate benefits aside, the value of our forests is immense. Rainforests cover just 6% of Earth’s surface but are <a href="http://www.iucn.org/about/union/secretariat/offices/oceania/oceania_resources_and_publications/fact_sheets/?9712/Facts-and-figures-on-Forests">home to 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity</a>, with many species still to be discovered and named. </p>
<p>With the <a href="http://cam.cancer.gov/newsletter/2013-spring/a_conversation_with_spring2013.html">US National Cancer Institute</a> having already commercialised products from rainforest plants, better treatments for many of humanity’s most intractable illnesses may lie hidden in forests that are currently being cut down or burned.</p>
<p>An estimated <a href="http://www.fao.org/forestry/30515/en/">half a million square kilometres</a> of forest – two and half times the size of Great Britain – were cut down between 2000 and 2010. But while numbers can be hard to visualise, flying above the forests of Sumatra or Kalimantan gives a clear view of the often industrial-scale exploitation that has occurred. </p>
<p>It is a problem of epic scale. No longer is it sweaty men with large saws, a couple of trucks and a bulldozer. When the forests of Southeast Asia are cleared it can be a military-sized operation: thousands of people with hundreds of machines clearing the land of all its biodiversity, stored carbon and unaccountable value. A job that would once have taken months is now over in hours.</p>
<p>The wood from these majestic, unique places goes on to make not only identifiable products like paper, tissue and kitchen towel, but also the cardboard packaging, stickers and paper that surrounds much else of what we buy. And with forests also cleared for agriculture, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-continues-to-destroy-indonesias-wildlife-31831">palm oil</a> alone produced on previously forested land is found in about <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/palm_oil/">half of the products on our supermarket shelves</a>. </p>
<p>Tracking the sources of all these products is hard – so hard that it is tempting just to disengage. But, as with climate change, we can’t abstain from trying just because it’s difficult.</p>
<h2>Taking action</h2>
<p>And there are reasons for hope. Over the past five years organisations such as Greenpeace have done an outstanding job in revealing the scourge of landscape-scale deforestation. Their global, highly creative campaigns against companies like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rb1HhmNtiw">Nestle</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3MT71Vy8_s">Mattel</a> and <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/app/toys/sector/disney/">Disney</a> have urged consumers to think hard about the deforestation behind the products on their shelves.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Greenpeace targeted Mattel after alleging that Barbie’s packaging comes from rainforest destruction.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In turn, this has prompted major <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/26/palm-oil-companies-deliver-deforestation-promises">agribusinesses</a> and <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/sustainability/vision-2020/forest-conservation-policy">paper companies</a> that supply those brands to commit to zero-deforestation practices. </p>
<p>Having had a role to play in some of the <a href="http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/forestagreements/index.htm">regional forest agreements</a> in New South Wales in the 1990s, I know how challenging implementing these commitments would be, even in a developed country like Australia. It is harder still in the muddled, multilayered and complex bureaucracies of many Southeast Asian countries. </p>
<h2>Ignitions and emissions</h2>
<p>Two weeks ago I was Singapore. The air was choked with acrid smoke from the <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/09/indonesian-fires-create-%22hazardous%22-levels-air-pollution-singapore">forest and peat fires in nearby Sumatra</a>. Schools were closed, sporting events cancelled, and people told to stay indoors. The <a href="http://rainforests.mongabay.com/08indo_fires.htm">last major Indonesian forest fires in 1997</a> not only had a devastating effect on the landscape and human health; they also produced <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999GL900067/abstract">an estimated 40% of the all the world’s greenhouse emissions that year</a> – the biggest annual jump in carbon dioxide on record. </p>
<p>The costs for Singaporeans are massive – not only to their health but also to the reputation of the island state. How these fires were set, and who is to blame, is unclear. </p>
<p>The sole benefit of this ongoing tragedy of the commons is that it serves to focus attention on the problem. And there is potential that the upcoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/paris-2015-climate-summit">United Nations climate summit in Paris</a> could deliver real progress on avoiding deforestation.</p>
<h2>From peat fires to Paris</h2>
<p>Several factors are coming together. First, the UN has worked hard on getting major businesses to acknowledge the need to halt deforestation. The <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/07/New-York-Declaration-on-Forest-%E2%80%93-Action-Statement-and-Action-Plan.pdf">New York Declaration on Forests</a> pledges to halve the rate of global forest loss by 2020, and seeks to end it completely by 2030.</p>
<p>Of course, that is weaker than what is required. But at least it is a start, and through signing the declaration, major businesses like McDonalds, WalMart and Unilever have shown their concern and will now have to deliver.</p>
<p>Second, following Greenpeace’s high-profile campaigns, companies that operate in Asia such as <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/sustainability/vision-2020/forest-conservation-policy">Asia Pulp and Paper</a>, <a href="http://www.wilmar-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/No-Deforestation-No-Peat-No-Exploitation-Policy.pdf">Wilmar</a> and others have now made far stronger commitments than the New York Declaration. We should hope fervently that they succeed, because if they can’t find a way to satisfy consumer demand using plantations, there is little hope for native forests.</p>
<p>Third, the <a href="https://au.fsc.org/about-fsc.175.htm">Forest Stewardship Council</a>, having played a key role in helping educate consumers, retailers and producers through its <a href="https://ic.fsc.org/certification.4.htm">certification schemes</a>, recognises that there is now a need to go beyond certification and to ensure responsible forest management is driven by clear principles and a process of <a href="http://www.tft-earth.org/stories/news/beyond-certification/">constant improvement</a>. Placing a logo on a product and hoping to insulate yourself against criticism is very different to the strategic choice that, as a business, you are committed to eradicating native forest material from your products.</p>
<p>Finally, climate finance targeted at developing countries is beginning to chip away at the economic incentives to exploit forested land. To date, the issue has been impenetrable to anyone lacking the patience to decipher the jargon-laden negotiations behind the <a href="http://www.un-redd.org/aboutredd">UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)</a> program. But with the UN’s renewed focus, the desire of businesses to commit to zero deforestation, and the political need for the Paris talks to deliver tangible progress, a powerful market driver to protecting forests could yet become a reality. </p>
<p>No sensible person wants the things they buy to come with a side serving of environmental destruction. With progress on international policy, effective advocacy, public awareness and business commitments, we may just still be able to protect what’s left of the world’s great tropical rainforests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Rowley, as part of international consultancy 'Robertsbridge', has assisted Asia Pulp and Paper in the implementation of its Forest Conservation Policy.</span></em></p>The world’s rainforests are still being slashed and burned at a dizzying rate to make consumer products. But now there are signs of real political will, especially in Asia, to rein in the destruction.Nick Rowley, Adjunct professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.