Massive amounts of carbon are being released into the atmosphere as swathes of forests growing on peat swamps in Southeast Asia are being converted to palm oil plantations, prompting scientists to call for a special focus on them in the upcoming climate talks, a press statement said in Bogor, Indonesia.

Scientists with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Daniel Murdiyarso, Kristell Hergoualc'h and Louis Verchot, called for a special focus on peat lands in any future deal on REDD+, a global mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, as well as the conservation and sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

"There needs to be urgent action to halt the current tremendous rate of destruction of forested peat lands," Murdiyarso said. "We know that peat lands contain more carbon belowground than that stored aboveground, but how much is released as emissions depend on many biophysical factors and management practices."

Greenhouse gas accounting guidelines provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) do not make specific mention of peat. They refer more broadly to wetlands, which also include rice paddies, swamps, natural rivers and lake systems -- which contain far less carbon.

"Until now we have known very little about emission factors for greenhouse gas accounting for tropical peat lands, much less than for other ecosystems," Hergoualc'h said. "But we now have a better idea about these factors for tropical peat lands. We calculated peat carbon loss from a change in land use by measuring how a switch in vegetation altered the main carbon inputs to and outputs from the peat."

In Indonesia, which is home to one of the world's largest areas of peat land, protection of these carbon "sinks" was put at further risk by a 2009 national regulation that permits the development of oil-palm plantations in peat lands with peat depth less than 3 meters. This comes despite a report the same year by the government revealing that almost half of the country's emissions come from the destruction and degradation of peat land. Indonesia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

"Unless future global climate policies create significant financial incentives to overcome the economic drivers of deforestation, REDD+ will not be able to compete financially," said Verchot.

Peat lands cover about 3 percent of the earth's land area, but store as much as one-third of all soil carbon. If that carbon is emitted into the atmosphere, it would be equal to about 75 years of burning fossil fuels at the current global rate.

More than 100,000 hectares of peat lands in Southeast Asia are being converted every year into plantations for palm oil and pulpwood, statistics show.