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Saving the peatlands of Borneo

July 26, 2002

Recent EU funding for University of Leicester research into Borneo peatlands will help to save the natural habitat of species such as the orang-utan, already under threat.

The island of Borneo includes 11 million hectares of peatland, an area almost half the size of the land area of the UK, important reservoirs of biodiversity, which include rare and endangered animals.

Tropical peatlands also perform valuable natural functions such as carbon sequestration and flood control, yet they are currently under considerable threat from land degradation, clearance and fire. In many cases, large-scale forest clearance is being carried out by companies to provide land for plantation crops (e.g. oil palm), but elsewhere the forests are being severely degraded as a result of uncontrolled illegal logging which provides a short-term income for local people but no prospect of sustainable livelihoods.

Destruction is increasingly rapid and severe damage has already been caused on both a regional and global level.

Dr Sue Page, of the University of Leicester Department of Biology and Institute of Lifelong Learning, has recently received European Union funding of £46,433 for a three-year research project that will result in improved management of tropical peatlands.

The STRAPEAT funding (Strategies for Implementing Sustainable Management of Peatlands in Borneo, FPS-INCO-DEV) will enable her to put to use information she collected during a previous EU-funded project investigating the natural resources and biodiversity of South-east Asian peatlands.

The STRAPEAT project will result in recommendations to confront the issues of resource management. In particular, guidelines will be prepared for implementing sustainable land management strategies, including advice on the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded and mismanaged areas. The project aims to strengthen local research capability and to disseminate information on wise use to relevant local and regional stakeholders, e.g. local communities, government employees, private sector industries.

Speaking about the importance of the project, Dr Page said: "Producing management guidelines for tropical peatlands represents a considerable challenge. In addressing one of the least-studied tropical ecosystems, we hope to emphasise the true regional and global importance of these vast wetland landscapes and to ensure that their future management is based upon a better understanding of the full range of environmental, social and economic values that they can provide, both in a natural and a developed state".

Leicester, University of