A group of 139 scientists have published a letter in response to recent newspaper reports carrying comments made by a Malaysian government minister about the country’s peatlands. Writing in Global Change Biology, the scientists, representing 115 government, academic, industry and non-governmental organisations from 20 countries, describe the comments as a state of denial, with potentially “devastating consequences.”The letter says that business-as-usual management of tropical peatland in SE Asia – which frequently includes burning to clear the land for oil palm plantation – is not sustainable and can no longer be justified. Blog
Setting the record straight on oil palm and peat in SE Asia
A group of 139 scientists have published a letter in response to recent newspaper reports carrying comments made by a Malaysian government minister about the country’s peatlands. Writing in Global Change Biology, the scientists, representing 115 government, academic, industry and non-governmental organisations from 20 countries, describe the comments as a state of denial, with potentially “devastating consequences.”The letter says that business-as-usual management of tropical peatland in SE Asia – which frequently includes burning to clear the land for oil palm plantation – is not sustainable and can no longer be justified. 
