Mud, muddle and models in the knowledge value-chain to action on tropical peatland conservation

Meine Van Noordwijk,Hesti Lestari Tata,Jenny Farmer,Sebastian Persch,Atiek Widayati,Fahmuddin Agus,Robin Matthews,Sonya Dewi,Kristell Hergoualc’H,Louis Verchot,Betha Lusiana

doi:10.1007/s11027-014-9576-1

Abstract

Tropical peatlands are known not only for their high, area-based, carbon emissions in response to land-use change but also as hot spots of debate about associated data uncertainties. Perspectives are still evolving on factors underlying the variability and uncertainty. Debate includes the ways of reducing emissions through rewetting, reforestation and agroforestry. A knowledge value-chain that is long and complex links (a) fundamental understanding of peat and peatland processes leading to sciencebased quantification and default values, (b) willingness and (c) ability to act towards emission reduction, and ultimately (d) to local, national and global actions that effectively provide rules, incentives and motivation to conserve peat and reduce emissions. We discuss this value chain, its stakeholders and issues that still remain partially unresolved. We conclude that, to shorten the denial and conspiracy-theory stages of debate that otherwise slow down steps B and C, networks of international and national scientists have to be involved at the early stage of identifying policysensitive environmental issues. Models span part of the knowledge value-chain but transition of analysis units requires specific attention, from soil volumes through area and commodity flows to opportunities for reductions. While drainage of peatlands triggers landscape-scale increases in emissions, factors beyond drainage depth, including nutrient supply, may have a major influence on decomposition rates. Attempts to disentangle the contributions of plant and peat-based respiration in surface flux measurements involve assumptions that cannot be easily verified in comparisons between land uses. With progress on A leading to new internationally accepted defaults and with resistance on step B reduced, the reality of C and lack of working solutions for D is currently constraining further progress.

Highlights

Tropical peatlands have become hot spots of greenhouse gas emissions, with much debate about their quantification and efforts to reduce them (e.g. Hooijer et al, 2012; Hergoualc’h and Verchot, 2013; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014)
The aboveground biomass of forests on peat is less than that on mineral soils, converting natural forest on peat leads to much higher carbon emissions, for two reasons: 1) if fire is used in land clearing, or escapes in the landscape owing to clearing elsewhere, several decimetres of peat can burn; 2) in drained peat, soil microbes can decompose the substrate and lead to a subsidence rate of initially several centimetres per year, with additional subsidence owing to compaction of the peat; subsidence influences water management and is used as indicator of carbon emissions, after correction for compaction
Our quick tour of the issues associated with reducing emissions from tropical peatlands suggests that there is some progress in all four requirements for mitigation action, basic understanding (a), willingness (b) and ability (c) to act and effective alternative land uses (d), but that progress has been uneven

Summary

Introduction

Tropical peatlands have become hot spots of greenhouse gas emissions, with much debate about their quantification and efforts to reduce them (e.g. Hooijer et al, 2012; Hergoualc’h and Verchot, 2013; IPCC, 2014). A fundamental understanding of peat and peatland dynamics is certainly needed as the basis for appropriate policy responses, but the current debate on policy and economic incentives to reduce emissions are several steps beyond understanding of the basic processes. Added to this complexity are the many social, ecological, economic, policy-oriented, engineering, management and biophysical aspects of real-world systems, plus the need to effectively communicate interventions in the context of local ecological knowledge, traditional rule systems, local stakeholder preferences, and the language and mindsets of government officials. In line with the prominent role that the country has so far had in emissions due to peatland conversion to other land use, most of our discussion refers to Indonesia

Methods: a knowledge value chain

Knowledge chain transitions

Science-based understanding of what’s behind emissions from peat

Nationally appropriate mitigation actions as part of global climate policy

Results: progress on issues along the knowledge value-chain

Discussion