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| | | Richard Daniel chairs the interactive environmental programme in which he and his guests deal with listener's questions and concerns.
Call 0370 010 0400
home.planet@bbc.co.uk
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Planet, PO Box 3096, Brighton BN1 1PL | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN 30 min | | | |
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| | PRESENTER | | | |
|  | | | | "Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Planet is the environmental programme for which you set the agenda. We tackle your questions and concerns and try and make some sense out of the conflicting opinions which make up the environmental debate."
Richard Daniel | | | | |
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| | | | PROGRAMME DETAILS | | | |
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Panel
Derek Moore OBE
Department of Plant Science, University of Oxford
Reader in Soil Science, University of Reading
Bio-geographer, University of London
TOPICS
How much C02 is released through forest fires in Indonesia?
Dr Nick Brown estimated the amount of C02 that may have been released by these fires. He based his calculations on the work of Page, S E, F Siegert, J O Rieley, H-D V Boehm, A Jaya, and S Limin. 2002. "The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997". Nature 420:61-65.
These authors extrapolate from a 2.5 million hectare study area in Central Kalimantan, Borneo to the whole of the country. They estimate that as a result of the fires in 1997 between 0.81 and 2.57 Gigatonnes of carbon were released.
Even without the catastrophic loss of the huge peat deposits in Kalimantan, deforestation alone is releasing very significant quantities of carbon. The annual rate of deforestation in Indonesia since 1997 has been about 500 thousand hectares per year (Fuller, D O, T C Jessup, and A Salim. 2004. "Loss of Forest Cover in Kalimantan, Indonesia, Since the 1997-1998 El Nino". Conservation Biology 18:249-254.)
Nick Brown thinks that there would be between 300-400 tonnes of biomass per hectare in lowland Bornean rain forest which would crudely equate to 150-200 tonnes of carbon per hectare. If all of this is lost and very little new biomass accumulated then this would release 75 million tonnes of carbon per year, or one 20th of the global emissions from biomass clearing.
Why don't we see mongrel birds?
Philip Stott and Derek Moore explained that "mongrels" appear within a species, for example dogs. There are many species of bird and breeding between two of them is known as "hybridisation". This sometimes happen where birds are at the limits of their range and where man has altered habitat.
Contamination of soil
Dr Chris Collins of Reading University advised anyone suspecting land to be contaminated to contact the Pollution Control Officer of the relevant local authority.
Contact Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Planet
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Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Planet
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
PO Box 3096
Brighton BN1 1PL
Or email the programme: home.planet@bbc.co.uk
Or telephone the Audience Line 03700 100 400
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