Greenhouse gas threat from tropical peatland to be investigated

Dr Susan Page, environmental researcher at the University of Leicester, is to head an international team to protect an area that stores up to 70 billion tonnes of carbon.

The Carbopeat project will investigate the carbon-climate-human relationships of Tropical Peatlands.

"These peatlands are carbon-dense ecosystems that are extremely vulnerable to destabilisation through human- and climate-induced changes," Page said.

"Located mainly in South-East Asia, they store 50-70 billion tonnes of carbon (3% global soil carbon) but poor land management practices and fire, mainly associated with plantation development and logging, are releasing some of this carbon and contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.

"The Carbopeat project will identify key issues and critical gaps in our understanding of tropical peatland carbon dynamics, analyse implications for policy, and formulate guidelines for optimising the tropical peat carbon store that can be understood readily by policy makers and decision takers in both European and South-East Asian countries."

Colleagues from Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam will be organising several major events at which the profile of tropical peatlands will be raised.

Detailed studies carried out by Page and others over more than 10 years have shown that tropical peat swamp forest has an abundance of plants and animals, including the endangered orangutan, and that the peatlands perform a range of valuable services, such as water storage, flood prevention and carbon storage.