On the 27th October, I headed towards Sumatra, Indonesia. After a long journey, I finally arrived at my destination – Greenpeace’s “Forest Defenders Camp” in central Sumatra’s Riau Province A Greenpeace team and the local community jointly built the camp on community land to take a stand against the destruction of peatland swamp forest for palm oil plantation. Riau’s peatlands hold 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon, almost as much as the world’s annual emissions. Greenpeace took action in Riau’s peatlands to highlight the fast increasing emissions from deforestation ahead of the critical Kyoto climate treaty discussions, which take place in Bali, Indonesia from 3rd -14th December.

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When I saw the forest destruction with my own eyes it made my heart ache. The vast peatland forest areas, which had been logged, drained by canals and then burnt were a vision of complete destruction. Palm oil companies are clearing the peatland forests in preparation for planting palm trees for palm oil. Peat holds huge amounts of carbon, and when burnt it releases large quantities of greenhouse gases that further add to global warming. Indonesia’s forests are being destroyed faster than those of any other major forested country, making Indonesia the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the US.

I have participated in various activities for Greenpeace China in Hong Kong, so when I was asked to go to the Forest Defenders Camp I thought it would be similar, The aim of this project is to prevent palm oil companies from destroying pristine peatland forests, mostly illegally, and to throw the spotlight on the craziness of destroying these forests for palm oil used in confectionary products and for ‘green’ fuel. Greenpeace released a report “Cooking the Climate” proving the links between huge multinational brands such as Unilever and Nestle and forest destruction for palm oil in Riau Province. Palm oil from Indonesia ends up in Kit-Kats and Pringles, amongst other products. Palm oil from this region is also exported for use in green fuels in Europe, China and India, Destroying forests for green fuel is like throwing petrol on a fire. The fuel may be low on emissions BUT the carbon released from the peat destruction to produce it makes it far more polluting than conventional fuel.

My main role at the “Forest Defenders Camp” was to help build dams across the canals draining the peatland. I learnt a lot from my time at the camp, which will help me in future campaign action plans. I learnt about Greenpeace’s positive role in protecting the forests. We were blocking the canals to keep the water table high enough in the peatlands to stop them draining, being burnt and making climate change worse.

Together with other volunteers, we halted the destruction of an area of peat land swamp forest by building five dams across three-metre deep canals. The dams will prevent the palm oil company from illegally burning the currently waterlogged peat land, prior to planting palm oil saplings, which would further add to global warming.

Our work resulted in the Dutch government decision to stop importing palm oil from Indonesia for biomass as well as Sweden’s largest fuel company announcement that they would no longer import Indonesian palm oil for green fuel. Our work in Riau has enabled the story of the impacts of peatland destruction in Indonesia to be told globally. Once the problem is known, measures can be taken to stop any further destruction. This made me feel proud to be part of this project.

During my 14 days at the Camp, I had to work outdoors in 40-degree heat, survive countless encounters with huge bugs and suppress my fears about contracting malaria and dengue fever. The destruction we are trying to stop is wiping out species of endangered animals and plants, like the Sumatran tiger and driving local communities from their homes. Therefore, we must ACT NOW and make the difference together!

I wanted to share my experiences at the camp with you because I want to draw your attention to the seriousness of deforestation. We need governments meeting in Bali to agree to negotiate a new funding mechanism to protect the world’s remaining tropical forests as a critical component of the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol. An area of forest the size of a football field disappears every two seconds.