Indonesia bans peatlands destruction
▻http://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/indonesia-bans-peatlands-destruction
In response to the fires that have hospitalized roughly 500,000 people, polluted skies over a large swathe of southeast Asia, and released upwards of 1.7 billion tons of carbon, Indonesian president Joko Widodo has banned clearance and conversion of carbon-dense peatlands across the archipelago.
The move, undertaken through a series of presidential and ministerial instructions issued over the last two-and-a-half weeks, was welcomed on Tuesday by Greenpeace, which has been pushing for measures to curtail destruction of Indonesia’s peatlands.
“President Jokowi is right to seek to prevent next year’s fires by banning further expansion into peatlands, and requiring peat drainage canals be blocked. It is also just that the government has declared burned areas must be rehabilitated rather than planted,” said Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner Yuyun Indradi in a statement. “President Jokowi’s landmark decision to ban peatland development is a first step toward a cleaner, brighter future for Indonesia’s people and environment. It sets the bar for meaningful commitments from world leaders to tackle the root causes of climate change at the Paris climate summit.”
#forêt #déforestation #tourbières #industrie_palmiste #pollution #santé