Carbon stock, APP, emission, fires, forest fires, gambut, haze, palm oil, peatland, Riau, sawit, wood supply,
EoF News (PEKANBARU)—Fires in Indonesia continues unabated. An early estimate by the Indonesian government of the haze crisis cost this year was as high as 465 trillion rupiah (US$34 billion). The total size of burned forest/land this year is estimated by LAPAN (Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space) reached 2 million hectares throughout the country, with Kalimantan and Sumatra being the most affected.
Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) published its early estimate on 28 October that emissions from Indonesian fires this year already passed 1.5 billion tons CO2 equivalent, more than German or Japanese fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2013 (Figure 1) and many days in the past 2 months the fire emissions exceeded daily CO2 emissions of the United States.
Eyes on the Forest reported on 14 October that Sinar Mas Group/Asia Pulp & Paper (SMG/APP) is the corporate group with the highest number of hotspots this year: 39% of all high confidence hotspots in Sumatra and 53% of all high confidence hotspots on Sumatra’s peat. Three of the SMG/APP suppliers in South Sumatra, PT. Bumi Andalas Permai, PT. Bumi Mekar Hijau and PT. Sebangun Bumi Andalas Wood Industries, received “Preventative Measures Notices” from Singapore’s National Environmental Agency (NEA) for possible transgression of the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act. They have five concession blocks totaling around 531,000 ha which are supposed to be wood suppliers for SMG/APP’s new OKI pulp mill (Map 1).