Seminar on Preventing Climate Change through Forest Conservation in Indonesia
Date: 11.5.2011
Place: Tieteiden talo, Kirkkokatu 6, Helsinki, Finland.

Siemenpuu Foundation in cooperation with the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation organised a seminar on  Preventing Climate Change through Forest Conservation in Indonesia on Wednesday 11th of May, 2011. The focus of the seminar was on the role of conservation of Indonesia’s peatlands and peat swamp forests as a mean of combating climate change. Speakers of the seminar were Indonesian and Finnish civil society activists, researchers and experts of development.

There are over 22 million hectares of peatlands in Indonesia. For instance, Kampar Peninsula, the world’s biggest uniform peat massif located in Sumatra, contains approximately the same quantity of carbon as the yearly emissions released to the atmosphere due to human activities. Other big peat swamp areas are located in Kalimantan, Papua and elsewhere in Sumatra. Although these areas are vital in the fight against climate change, their destruction is rapid and causes massive carbon dioxide emissions.

How should peat swamp forests and peatlands be conserved and restored? Can these areas be used sustainably? What kind of impact do climate funding and forest and oil palm industry have on forest and peatland areas?

Here you can download the seminar presentations in pdf.

Presentations:
Prof. Harri Vasander (Department of forest sciences, University of Helsinki): The consequences of tropical peat swamp land-use changes on carbon emissions

Muslim (Jikalahari, Sumatra): Changes in Kampar forests areas from the local point of view

Prof. Markku Kanninen (Viikki tropical resources institute, University of Helsinki): Forests and Indonesia’s climate policy

Asep Firdaus (HuMa): Climate change policies and REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) programmes in Indonesia

Vesa Kaarakka (Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland): Finland’s development cooperation and climate funding