Indonesia is opening its doors to international support for the restoration and improved management of carbon-rich peatlands to support the achievement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets.
“As the owner of the largest tropical peatland area in the world, Indonesia is open to receiving multilateral support to achieve the target of restoration and improvement of peatland hydrological management,” said Chief Operating Officer the International Tropical Peatland Center (ITPC) Agus Justianto at the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) Peatland 2024 in Bonn, Germany, Thursday, June 6, 2024.
Indonesia’s peatland area reaches 24.67 million hectares. As a place to store very large carbon, peatland ecosystems play a very vital role in the target of reducing GHG emissions from the forestry and other land use (FOLU) sector.
Indonesia targets to achieve FOLU Net Sink by 2030, where carbon absorption from the FOLU sector is higher than its emissions at a level of minus 140 million tons CO2 equivalent.
In the Operational Document of Indonesia’s FOLU Net Sink 2030, carbon emission reduction from peatland will be carried out through restoration and improvement of water management with the aim of reducing emissions from decomposition and fires. The target peatland area is 3.56 million hectares, consisting of 1.88 million hectares of restoration activities and 1.67 million hectares of water management improvement.
Agus stated four strategies to strengthen peatland ecosystem management, namely maintaining peatland wetness, improving peatland cover conditions, revitalizing peatland utilization activities, and strengthening peatland ecosystem management institutions.
“These four strategic actions must be implemented at the Peatland Hydrological Unit (KHG) level systematically and in an integrated manner because peatlands are united thanks to their hydrological function. The limitations are not administrative boundaries or boundaries,” said Agus.
Agus continued, multilateral support for the improvement of peatland ecosystem management can be channeled through the International Tropical Peatlands Center (ITPC) which is headquartered in Bogor. ITPC was initiated by Indonesia, Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to support sustainable tropical peatland management.
According to Agus, through ITPC, multilateral cooperation is expected to increase further to improve the management of peatland ecosystems in Indonesia and also in other tropical peatland-owning countries.
“Indonesia, as a founding country and member of ITPC, hopes for support from various international institutions for the implementation and development of ITPC programs and activities,” said Agus. ***
