Plans to restore Indonesian peatlands are a cost-effective strategy for reducing the impacts of peatland fires to the environment, climate and human health, says a new study.
Plans to restore Indonesian peatlands are a cost-effective strategy for reducing the impacts of peatland fires to the environment, climate and human health, says a new study.
The analysis, led by the University of Leeds, demonstrates that the benefits of effective Indonesian peatland restoration will outweigh the cost of restoration, and provides evidence to support ongoing peatland restoration efforts.
Currently, the Indonesian government has committed to restore 2.5 million hectares of degraded peatland, with a projected cost of between US$3.2 and US$7 billion.
Published today in Nature Communications, the study uses satellite data and models to estimate that peatland restoration could have resulted in economic savings of US$8.4 billion for 2004–2015.
The 2015 fires in Indonesia, the largest in recent years, resulted in economic losses totalling US$28 billion, while the six largest fire events between 2004 and 2015 caused a total of US$93.9 billion in economic losses resulting from damage to plantations, forestry and agriculture, CO2 emissions and health impacts due to exposure to air pollution.
Read more at: University of Leeds
The Norwegian-Swedish wolf is probably gone forever. Today's population is descended from Finnish wolves that migrated in after we exterminated our own wolves about 50 years ago. (Photo Credit: Per Harald Olsen, NTNU)
