Bandar Seri
Begawan, Brunei Darussal?am: A visit to Brunei by HRH
the Prince of Wales and HRH the Duchess of Cornwall is
focussing attention on the small sultanate’s disproportionate
share of pristine peatlands and forests.
“To many people, peat swamps are inhospitable
places that are only of interest to nature lovers,” said
Dato Hamdillah Wahab, Chairman of the Brunei Heart of
Borneo Council and Deputy Minister of Industry & Primary
Resources, “But if the Badas peat swamps stop supplying
water to Brunei Liquid Natural Gas, the company would
stop operating within 24 hrs."
“You cannot produce liquid natural gas
without water and what we have in our rivers would be
unmanageable and too expensive to clean up without the
filtration and slow release that the peat gives us for
free,” he added, “ We could not invent a better, more
cost-effective system, yet we tend to take it for granted.”
Dato Hamdillah was speaking prior to
the royal visit to the Badas peat swamps in the Heart
of Borneo conservation area ? a tri-country (Brunei Darussalam,
Indonesia and Malaysia) initiative which aims to preserve
one of the world's most important centres of biological
diversity, approximately 220,000 square kilometres of
equatorial forests, or almost a third of Borneo.
Brunei’s swamps, which include the best
preserved peat domes with their vast stores of carbon,
are vital to absorbing and regulating water flows and
avoiding floods and potential dry season issues such as
saline intrusion into rivers. However, when these waterlogged
peat areas are drained, they become very susceptible to
fire, as well as releasing huge quantities of their stored
CO2 into the atmosphere.
This is of major concern – it has been
calculated that, in the last few years, the CO2 emissions
from drained and fire-affected peatlands in Indonesia
amount to some 2,000 million tonnes, putting Indonesia
third in the CO2 emissions league behind the USA and China,
and ahead of Russia and India.
Fires from the degraded peatland areas
have been occurring more and more frequently over the
past two or three decades, resulting in haze and smoke
that envelope the Southeast Asia region. This causes serious
health problems, particularly respiratory diseases, and
disrupts normal life and the economies of the countries
affected. During the 1997 and 1998 haze episodes, it was
estimated that US$ 9 million worth of damage was caused.
“About 60% of Brunei’s peat swamps are
still relatively pristine, compared to only a fraction
of that elsewhere in Borneo,” said Dato’ Dr Mikaail Kavanagh,
WWF’s Special Advisor to the Heart of Borneo Programme,
"Brunei has laid out a roadmap of priority work to
be done to implement the Heart of Borneo nationally, and
peatlands management is one of the top issues. It is vital
to manage these areas for their water, for fire prevention,
and for their carbon storage and biological diversity.”
“We should also note,” he added, “that
attempts to convert peatlands into other land-uses, such
as large-scale agricultural schemes, have generally ended
up as expensive failures. Because of the nature of the
peat itself and the water management that has to be done,
it is a lot better to manage these areas in harmony with
nature.”
The project is receiving support from
the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Standard
Chartered Bank, among others.
"Since climate change is a major
global concern, it is fitting that the international community
is assisting Brunei in the wise management of its peatlands,"
said Adam Tomasek, Leader of WWF International's Heart
of Borneo Initiative.
