Issues on Sustainable Palm Oil in Indonesia
Peatland and Palm Oil There are global interests on utilizing peatlands, which cover 3% of the total earth land mass. The intentions are to use them as massive blocks of agricultural plantation, to extract energy contents, and simply to conserve them as giant but natural carbon storage. Redapes.org (2007) argued that despite peatlands occupy only 3% of the globe land mass; they contain approximately 550 billion tonnes of carbon, as twice as much as all forests can hold. This naturally abundance of carbon is a major concern to global climate issue. To developing countries located on tropical region, peatland is a potential agricultural site for large monoculture plantation. Indonesia and Malaysia are the leading countries for palm oil plantations on peatlands (International Herald Tribune, 2009). With regard to an increasingly sensitive issue on creating more responsible and eco-friendly agriculture, palm oil plantations on peatlands become one of the main key issues in reducing g