Jakarta (Dec 2, ANN): Satellite data has shown that forest and land fires this year mostly burned idle land, peatlands or former forests, strengthening case for the mass reforestation of degraded peatlands, a research institute said on Monday (Dec 2).

“While there has been much speculation in the news that the heavy fire season has taken a toll on the country’s remaining rainforests, there was no hard evidence to support that notion, ” said David Gaveau, a landscape ecologist and research associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor, Indonesia.