Peat swamp forest
[3] In addition, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) drought and large-scale fires are accelerating peatland devastation.
[4] Tropical peat swamp forests are home to thousands of animals and plants, including many rare and critically endangered species such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger, whose habitats are threatened by peatland deforestation.
[2] About 62% of the world's tropical peat lands occur in the Indomalayan realm (80% in Indonesia, 11% in Malaysia, 6% in Papua New Guinea, and pockets in Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand).
The formation process usually follows hydrosere successional steps,[1][10] where the ponds or flooded area eutrophicated by water plants, then transform into waterlogged swamp with grasses or shrubs, and eventually formed a forest that continues to grow and accumulate.
[13] Coastal peat formation is highly affected by the sea level rise with strong accumulation around 8-4000 BP when El Nino is less intense.
[20][21] Peat swamp forest are unusual ecosystems, with trees reaching as high in 70 m (230 ft) in South East Asian ecoregions—vastly different from the peatlands of the north temperate and boreal zones (which are dominated by Sphagnum mosses, grasses, sedges and shrubs).
[24] Over the past decade, under the Mega Rice Project (MRP), the government of Indonesia has drained over 1 million hectares of the Borneo peat swamp forests for conversion to agricultural land.
A study for the European Space Agency found that up to 2.57 billion tons of carbon were released to the atmosphere in 1997 as a result of burning peat and vegetation in Indonesia.
Indonesia is currently the world's third largest carbon emitter, to a large extent due to the destruction of its ancient peat swamp forests.
They have the potential of playing an important role in mitigating global warming and climate change under the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scheme.
One plan by the environmental NGO Borneo Orangutan Survival is to preserve the peat swamp forest of Mawas using a combination of carbon finance and debt-for-nature-swap.
Projects by REDD are designed to tackle deforestation and protect forests from the encroachment of agriculture, benefitting biodiversity and improving the quality of the environment to surrounding villages.
[27] To counter the destruction of mangroves and unsustainable palm oil expansion in Indonesia's peatlands, organizations, such as Wetlands International, work with the Indonesian government to improve policies and spatial planning.
The presence of a very large, self-sustaining orangutan population in this region emphasizes the urgency for greater protection of Kalimantan's peat swamp forests in light of recent and rapid habitat degradation.
Studies in a tropical Malaysian peat swamp (North Selangor peat swamp forest) showed that although the sclerophyllous, toxic leaves of endemic peat-forest plants (Macaranga pruinosa, Campnosperma coriaceum, Pandanus atrocarpus, Stenochlaena palustris) were barely decomposed by bacteria and fungi, the leaves of M. tanarius, another plant species, were almost completely decomposed after one year.
