Vulnerability And Transformation Of Indonesian Peatlands

This open access book deals with restoring degraded peatlands to help mitigate global warming, to which SDG 15 and SDG 13 are directly related. The book analyzes peatland degradation and restoration of the Indonesian peatland ecosystem through the integrated lens of resilience, vulnerability, adaptation, and transformation. It sheds light on what constitutes "resilience" of the peat swamp forest, digs deeper into local knowledge in developing the studies on institutions, governance, and ecological conditions that support the resilience of the peat swamp forest to elaborate on the idea of transformation in today's degraded peatlands. While peat swamp forests may be resilient, they remain highly vulnerable. The book analyzes restoration efforts through rewetting, revegetation, and rehabilitation of the local livelihoods with the concepts of adaptation and transformation. The integrated analysis covers fieldwork of more than a decade and various aspects such as agrarian and social changes, biological changes (birds, mammals, and termites), carbon emission, water control, timber use, revegetation efforts, and the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) program implementation. It also employs the ideas of vulnerability, resilience, adaptability, and transformation based on expanded studies on peatlands and observations of and participation in multiple efforts to prevent fires and restore the degraded peatland by researchers, the government, non-government organizations (NGOs), private companies, and last but not least, the local people. The discussion includes the period of pre-degradation and several efforts at peatland restoration for a better understanding and analysis of the long-term peatland dynamics.

Key messagesIndonesia and Peru harbor some of the largest lowland tropical peatland areas. Indonesian peatlands are subject to much greater anthropogenic activity than Peru's resulting in high GHG and particulate emissions.We explored patterns of impact in both countries and compared predisposing factors. Impacts differ greatly among Indonesian regions and the Peruvian Amazon in the order: Sumatra > Kalimantan > Papua > Peru.All impacts, except fire, are positively related to population density.Current peatland integrity in Peru arises from a confluence of factors that has slowed development, with no absolute barriers protecting Peruvian peatlands from a similar fate to Indonesia's.If the goal is to maintain the integrity of Peruvian peatlands, government policies recognizing unique peatland functions and sensitivities will be necessary.

This book aims to provide insight into how Southeast Asian countries have responded to disasters, recovered, and rebuilt. It investigates emergency response and disaster recovery cases at national levels and from regional perspectives. Recovery from great disasters poses great challenges to affected countries in terms of organization, financing, and opportunities for post-disaster betterment. Importantly, disasters are critical moments in which to achieve disaster risk reduction, especially in the context of climate change and Sustainable Development Goals. Insights from these cases can help other countries better prepare for response and recovery before the next disaster strikes. While the experiences of disaster risk reduction and climate change implementation in Southeast Asian countries have been well documented, tacit knowledge from emergency response and recovery from these countries has not been transformed into explicit knowledge. There are only a few books that integrate information and lessons from post-disaster governance in Southeast Asia as a region, and because of the importance of providing real and recent situations, this book will interest many policymakers, practitioners, and academics. The information presented here will lead to a better understanding of how to plan for future disasters and improve governance to ensure effective emergency response as well as encouraging a build back better and safer towards a more resilient and sustained recovery.

This book is an excellent resource for scientists, political decision makers, and students interested in the impact of peatlands on climate change and ecosystem function, containing a plethora of recent research results such as monitoring-sensing-modeling for carbon–water flux/storage, biodiversity and peatland management in tropical regions. It is estimated that more than 23 million hectares (62 %) of the total global tropical peatland area are located in Southeast Asia, in lowland or coastal areas of East Sumatra, Kalimantan, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Brunei, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak and Southeast Thailand. Tropical peatland has a vital carbon–water storage function and is host to a huge diversity of plant and animal species. Peatland ecosystems are extremely vulnerable to climate change and the impacts of human activities such as logging, drainage and conversion to agricultural land. In Southeast Asia, severe episodic droughts associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, in combination with over-drainage, forest degradation, and land-use changes, have caused widespread peatland fires and microbial peat oxidation. Indonesia's 20 Mha peatland area is estimated to include about 45–55 GtC of carbon stocks. As a result of land use and development, Indonesia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (2–3 Gtons carbon dioxide equivalent per year), 80 % of which is due to deforestation and peatland loss. Thus, tropical peatlands are key ecosystems in terms of the carbon–water cycle and climate change.

Drawing upon current theoretical debates in social anthropology, development studies and political ecology, and presenting original research from across the Archipelago, this book addresses the changing histories and identities of upland people as they relate in new ways to the natural resource base, to markets and to the state. It is an engaged study, which fills important analytical gaps and addresses real-world concerns, exploring the uplands as components of national and global systems of meaning, power, and production. It offers a significant re-assessment of concepts, processes, histories, relationships and discourses, many of which are not unique to either the uplands or Indonesia, making the book essential and compelling reading for both scholars and practitioners.

Anthropogenic changes in the environment, caused by 250 years of economic growth and utilization of fuel and mineral resources, have considerably impacted the natural environment. The resulting physical and chemical alterations to the Earth's sphere and our adaptive responses in the biosphere are detailed in this reference book. Readers will learn about concepts relevant to Earth’s history, the evolution of life, economy, ecology, environmental history, biology, and medicine and how these concepts can be linked to environmental change. The scope of this interdisciplinary work entails to convey the true degree of responsibility for the universal consequences of ecosystem degradation resulting from industrial processing, human consumption and the transformation of natural sites due to industrialization and urbanization. Topics covered in the book include: -ecosystem transformations by natural and anthropogenic forces -the Anthropocene epoch -a short history of industrialization -environmental sites and the impact of socio-economic influences -the current environmental crisis, This textbook is intended for graduate students in economics, civil engineering, architecture, agronomics, forestry, technical and mining sciences, political sciences, business studies and humanities. General readers who wish to understand the basic philosophy behind environmental studies and their relation to human activity can also benefit from this book.

Southeast Asia is a laboratory showing current worldwide ecological issues. Environmental change, natural resource exploitation as well as global climate change increasingly threaten people's livelihoods. Environmentally-based uncertainties foster a high level of knowledge uncertainty. This poses a constantly growing threat to agricultural production. Vulnerable communities with a low degree of resilience are most severely affected. But local communities have abilities to innovate and develop locally embedded coping strategies. The contributors of this volume are most interested in environmental change that fosters knowledge uncertainties. Regions discussed include the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, Moluccas, Central Kalimantan, West Sumatra and South Sulawesi in Indonesia and Tangail Region in Bangladesh.