Southeast Asia is host to 60% of the world’s tropical peatlands and much of it is threatened from logging and fires. Singaporeans came to know about peat swamps and of our inter-connectedness to the environment of our neighbours during the 1997 Southeast Asian haze.
As a major carbon store, the degradation of peat swamp forests will further contribute to global climate change.
Learn the basics about this forest in our backyard (including some 50ha in Singapore) from this 2011 ebook, Peatlands in South East Asia: a profile
Where exactly are the “Peatlands in Southeast Asia”? Well, a poster with a map lays it out for you. It is available from aseanpeat.net
All resources listed here are available from the ASEAN Peatland Forests Project at aseanpeat.net, and you can follow them on Facebook.
See my note on peat swamp forests in Raffles Museum News, 29 Jan 2006.
Thanks to Noor Azura Ahmad, Programme Officer, Peatland Programme, Global Environment Centre, for the updates.
