Pekanbaru, Sumatra - Turning just one Sumatran province's forests and
peat swamps into pulpwood and palm oil plantations is generating more annual greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands and rapidly driving the province's elephants into extinction, a new study by WWF and partners has found.
Not exact matches
Tropical deforestation releases more than 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon
into the atmosphere every year, though in some years, like the 1997 - 1998 el Nino year when fires released some 2 billion tons of carbon from
peat swamps alone in Indonesia, emissions are more than twice that.
When
peat swamps are drained, converted, and burned, large quantities of stored carbon are released
into the atmosphere.