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.
