This is a guest post from Daniel Kessler, Media Officer at Greenpeace.

On November 16th, two Greenpeace activists from Germany and Italy and two members of the press from India and Italy, all of whom were traveling on valid business and journalist visas, were picked up and detained by Indonesian police. They were on their way to meet the villagers of Teluk Meranti, who have been supporting Greenpeace in its efforts to highlight rainforest and peatland destruction in the Kampar Peninsula–ground zero for climate change. The police also took into custody an activist from Belgium who had been working at our Climate Defenders Camp there.

Despite the validity of their travel documents and the absence of any wrongdoing, two of the activists and both journalists are now being deported by immigration authorities on questionable and seemingly contrived grounds, even though no formal deportation permits have been issued. Just a few days before, immigration authorities deported eleven other international Greenpeace activists who participated in a non-violent direct action on November 12th, in a concession where APRIL, one of Indonesia’s largest pulp and paper companies, is clearing rainforest and draining peatland on the Peninsula.

We set up the Climate Defenders Camp to bring attention to role of deforestation as a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in advance of December’s Copenhagen climate negotiations. If we are stop climate change, we must end global deforestation by 2020 and bring it to zero in priority areas like Indonesia by 2015. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm and acacia trees. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity — just row after row of conversion. The destruction of the peatlands helps to make Indonesia the world’s 3rd largest emitter go greenhouse gases, just after the US and China.

In the interest of the environment and human rights, Greenpeace is calling upon world leaders and concerned citizens to contact Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono to ask him to stop these repressive actions by the Indonesian Police and Immigration authorities. The tactics currently being used by the authorities are likely to adversely impact upon the Indonesian government’s international reputation as well as the country’s reputation as a vibrant democracy.

It is not Greenpeace activists or journalists who should be the focus of the authorities, but the companies who are responsible for this forest destruction. We are working to make President Yudhoyono’s recent commitment to reduce Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions a reality and the journalists are telling that story.

You can take action at www.greenpeace.org.

Press release from Greenpeace.

“Indonesia is climate change’s ‘ground zero’”

Jakarta, 12 November 2009 – As Barack Obama arrives in Asia for his first visit to the region as President and while the United States continues to block progress ahead of the critical UN climate negotiations at Copenhagen next month, a 50-strong international team of Greenpeace activists issued him an urgent call to action from the heart of Indonesia’s threatened rainforests.

One group of activists unfurled a 20 x 30 meter banner in a freshly destroyed area of rainforest that read “Obama: you can stop this”, urging him to take strong leadership and work closely with other Heads of State to help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. (1)

Another group of activists locked themselves to three excavators, owned by Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL – RGE), one of Indonesia’s biggest pulp and paper producers (2), to prevent it destroying the rainforest to make way for tree plantations (3), grown to make pulp and paper for international customers, including UPM Kymmene.

The action took place two days before Obama joins 20 other Heads of State in Singapore to discuss Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and just weeks before leaders must agree an historic deal to avert a climate crisis at the climate at December’s UN climate summit.

“Greenpeace is sending President Obama an urgent call to action from the frontline of climate and forest destruction. He has promised to take decisive action on climate change, yet with just weeks left before December’s critical UN climate summit, his administration is actively undermining and stalling global climate change negotiations,” (4) said Rolf Skar, Greenpeace USA Forest Campaigner. “It is vital that Obama and other world leaders attend the UN climate summit and agree to an ambitious, fair and effective deal that includes ending the destruction of the world’s rainforests.”

Greenpeace estimates that ending global deforestation requires industrialised countries to invest $42 billion US dollars (E30 billion) annually in forest protection. This is less than the US gave to individual banks during the financial crisis last year.

Today’s action took place on the Kampar Peninsula on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where Greenpeace has set up a ‘Climate Defenders’ Camp’. Rainforest and peatland destruction in Indonesia emits huge quantities of CO2 and has driven it to become the world’s third largest climate polluter after China and the US.(5) Activists at the camp are constructing dams across the canals – built by paper companies to prepare the land for plantations – in order to prevent them from draining and destroying the rainforest’s carbon-rich peat soil. The peatland in this area alone stores approximately 2 billion tonnes of carbon, which will be released to the atmosphere when it is destroyed. (6) The activists will continue to protect the rainforest and its peatland in coming weeks as the UN climate summit approaches.

“President Yudhoyono of Indonesia recently pledged to reduce emissions from deforestation and Greenpeace is here in the heart of the rainforest to help him turn his promise into action,” said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Bustar Maitar. “Indonesia is climate change’s ‘ground zero’. Stopping forest destruction here and around the globe is not only one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to combat climate change but is essential in order to avert runway climate change in our lifetime.”