The government of Indonesia took a promising step this week by asking World Bank for support in reducing carbon emissions from forest and peatland loss. However, last month, the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture issued a decree (Indonesian / English translation) to open up peatswamp areas for the development of palm oil plantations.

19 February 2009. While in the EU and the RSPO policies are being developed to exclude palmoil from carbon rich soils like peatlands and to prevent the loss of their precious forests, the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture issued a regulation to open up peatswamp areas for the development of palmoil plantations.

26 January 2009. The EU Renewable Energy Directive that promotes the use of biofuels, will not recognise feedstocks from  carbon rich wetlands as ‘renewables’. It also excludes peat under the ‘renewable energy’ label. This is a significant success, despite the fact that many other precious wetlands and ecosystems are still at risk due to very weak criteria for limiting the impacts of biofuel production on land-use.

1 December 2008. The UN climate summit in Poznan , Poland (1-12 December) is a key opportunity for addressing the huge greenhouse gas emissions from peatland degradation. A team of Wetlands International attends the summit to advocate policies that will address the loss of the worlds peatlands.

This Tuesday (11th Nov.), the world’s first certified palm oil under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) arrives on European shores. This certified palm oil originates from a plantation which has palm oil grown on peatlands. Wetlands International strongly cautions that palm oil cannot be certified "sustainable" as long as the sector refuses to include a criterion on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from land use change, in particular degradation of tropical peatlands.

10 September 2008. Tomorrow, the Industry, Research and EnergyCommittee (ITRE) of the European Parliament will vote about the Renewable Energy Directive. Wetlands International calls for a rejection of the 10% target for biofuel use in 2020.

September 1, 2008.
The UK think tank Policy Exchange has presented the costs of the most important climate measures. Reducing emissions from tropical peatlands is by far the cheapest way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions; using biofuels is by far the most expensive measure.

Wetlands International is concerned with the recent warning issued by the South-east Asian Ministerial Steering Committee on Transboundary Haze Pollution that the haze this year will be worse than 2006. The governments of the region should prevent the human induced peatland fires that cause the haze. 

The Central Kalimantan Peatland Project will be present at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany, May 2008.

CKPP get an extension of six additional months; till the end of June 2008. This was decided by the donor,Minister Koenders (Netherlands) during his visit at the project in December 2007.