Daniel Kessler: Mission Possible: Restoring the Peatland

By Daniel Kessler, Huffington Post

Written with Greenpeace's South Asia Media Campaigner Hikmat Soeriatanuwijaya

We are now on the peatland area of Semenanjung Kampar, half an hour away by boat from Greenpeace Climate Defenders' Camp.

As far as we can see are bushes, grasses, several trees, and bushes again. Man, this is not the rainforest. Here we are, at Semenanjung Kampar that has more than 700.000 hectare area of forest, storing more than 2 billion carbon in it. Oh yeah, we say to each other, the latest data said that almost half of Semenanjung Kampar forest, approximately 300,000 hectare now already destroyed for plantations.

And this area must be one of that 300,000 hectares we are talking about. The peatland on this particular area is damaged because of the several canals built a couple years ago for illegal logging activity. Now the logging activity is stopped, but the canals remain, draining and damaging the surrounding peatland each and every day.

In one canal, we can see about 50 Greenpeace activists and local community working hard building the dam. Under command of Petteri, the dam looks good. They already finished the first wall and continue to build the next one.

"Greenpeace activists and local communities working together building this dam to stop emission and restore the ecosystem of this place," said Petteri.

Stop the greenhouse...

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