Jakarta - Greenpeace activists are calling Jakartans to have a better look at the diminishing beauty of Riau forest at its makeshift camp in the heart of the capital.
"We initiate the construction of this Forest Defenders Camp Satellite Station in Jakarta to better inform the public here about forest and peatland destruction, especially in remote areas such as Riau," said one of Greenpeace South East Asia-Indonesia campaigners Nur Hidayati
Nur was speaking at the camp`s launch in National Monument Park on Saturday.
The satellite camp is a similar construction to the original camp in Kuala Cenaku village, Indragiri Hulu, Riau, and is set to be opened until November 11.
It features photograph exhibitions and short film screenings about forest and peatland destruction, art performances and opportunities for Jakartans to sign a petition for saving the Indonesian forests, particularly in Riau, as well as to become participants in the Greenpeace activities.
Greenpeace has so far collected some 20,000 signatures for its petition to save the Indonesia`s forests.
The forest defender camp in Riau was built on October 9 and stands on approximately 1,000 square meters of land owned by the villagers.
It is set to operate until mid December, in concurrence with the United Nations` 13th annual Conference on Climate Change in Bali.
Greenpeace regards the conference as an opportunity to push the government to show its commitment in handling deforestation in Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua, and other climate change issues.
Artist and environmentalist Rieke Diah Pitaloka was also at the launch and said, "The government must be able to save its forests with or without foreign aids mainly by enforcing the law".
She said since 2005 there had been 137 suspected cases of illegal logging, 96 suspects on the run and 18 cases tried with no conviction.
"This should not continue to happen," she said.
There are some 25 Greenpeace activists staying in the Riau camp they are documenting the destruction of Riau peatlands, training villagers and local apparatus in extinguishing forest fire, as well as damming the five canals previously made by a local palm company in a peatland area for their palm plantation.
"The canals were made by the palm plantation company to dry up the peatlands, but we are currently trying to prevent that," Nur said.
The largest peatlands in Indonesia are located in Riau, which cover an area about 4 million hectares.
Greenpeace cited a 2002 report of the Wetland International, showing Indonesia had a total of 20 million hectares of peatlands, of which 19 percent was located in Riau.
The report said Riau peatlands were estimated to store some 14 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the highest level of carbon gas from all peatlands nationwide.
Another Greenpeace South East Asia-Indonesia campaigner, Bustar Maitar, said the group had found palm plantations in Riau were openly cutting down forest trees and burning peatlands for their plantation.
Bustar said the group wanted to prevent bio-fuel market countries using fuel made of palm oil.
As of last week, said Bustar, a company in Sweden had made a statement canceling its use of palm oil as their main fuel.
According to the latest data cited by Greenpeace, Indonesia had become the third largest carbon emitter in the world after the U.S. and China, due to the destruction of its peatlands and forests.
Between 1982 and 2005, the deforestation level in Riau reached an average of 160,000 hectares annually, which rose to 200,000 hectares a year in 2004-2005.
In 2004, there was 2.7 million hectares forest left in Riau, from 6.4 million hectares of forest in 1982.
Greenpeace Indonesia has about 100 active volunteers from Jakarta, 30 from Bali, 15 from Bandung, West Java and 10 from Semarang, Central Java.
The volunteers are made up of a range of people including university and high school students and young professionals.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com (6 November 2007)
