Changing paradigms in the history of tropical peatland research

Abstract

The history of peatland research in Southeast Asia can be understood as a story of changing paradigms. Whereas already in 1778 the idea had been proposed that coal originates from peatlands and that during the Carboniferous a tropical climate had prevailed, peatland science maintained that in the tropics decomposition would proceed too rapidly to allow peat formation. The many reports of the contrary never reached nor convinced the mainstream scientific world. Only in 1909 with a publication of coal geologist Henri Potonié the existence of real peatlands was widely accepted. Potonié simultaneously underscored that tropical peatlands could only be groundwater fed. In 1933 Betje Polak convincingly argued that many Southeast Asian peatlands are in fact ombrogenous bogs, not geogenous fens. Instrumental in these scientific revolutions was the long-term devotion and the ‘un-disciplinary’ background of both Potonié and Polak. The decades that passed between the emergence of evidence and its wide acceptance support the observation that new scientific truths do not triumph by conviction, but because their opponents eventually die. As the peatlands in Southeast Asia are currently dying faster than their researchers, a new sustainability paradigm is urgently needed.