An assessment of the restoration efforts of degraded peatland in central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia's tropical peatlands are an ecosystem of global significance. They contain immense stores of carbon and play a key role in regional and global climate systems. They provide habitat for iconic species such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger, and they sustain the livelihoods of thousands of local people. Despite these values, Indonesia's peatland ecosystems have been subject to extensive deforestation and degradation during the past two decades. Recurrent peatland fires related to these land use activities have caused smoke pollution across the region, resulting in substantial public health issues and political controversy. More than 50% of the nation's 21 Mha of peatland can be considered as degraded. There is an urgent need to slow the rate of peatland degradation in Indonesia and to effectively restore the vast areas already damaged. A key consideration in this challenge is that tropical peatland restoration is an emerging field of scientific inquiry and little research has been published on the factors that constitute and influence successful restoration of tropical peatland ecosystems.This thesis addresses this gap in the broader ecosystem restoration literature by focusing on a case study of the so-called "Ex-Mega Rice Project" area of Central Kalimantan (an area previously subject to extensive degradation) and examining how successful peatland restoration can be achieved in Indonesia by: (1) reviewing the drivers of peatland degradation in the country in order to better understand the competing interests and broader socioecological context in which restoration activities need to be carried out; (2) studying previous restoration initiatives in Indonesia to better understand the restoration techniques used and the factors influencing their relative effectiveness; (3) analysing the specific tropical peatland restoration technique of "re-wetting" to better understand which elements of the technique best support effective restoration outcomes; (4) analysing the specific issue of illegal oil palm development on Indonesian peatland, including a consideration of what sorts of interventions are required to halt illegal oil palm development and control the associated recurrent fires that have been shown to substantially constrain the effectiveness of restoration initiatives; and (5) presenting an overarching conceptual framework of the factors that influence effective peatland restoration, which can be used by policy makers to devise restoration interventions that should have a greater probability of success.The drivers of peatland degradation in Indonesia can be categorised as direct and indirect. Direct drivers include logging, oil palm development and recurrent fires (mostly caused by large-and smallscale land use activities). Indirect drivers include climate change, the poverty and employment needs ii of local people, and the ineffective and sometimes perversely counter-productive land use governance systems.Techniques previously used to restore peatlands in Indonesia include rewetting through ...

Wading through the swamp: what does tropical peatland restoration mean to national‐level stakeholders in Indonesia?

“…Policymakers could also be more concerned about reporting negative impacts from government policies, highlighting the importance of NGOs and researchers in evaluating restoration policies and progress. Considering that all our respondents stated that community involvement was crucial to the success of peatland restoration, our results support others calling for more resources and funding to be directed into community engagement aspects of peatland restoration (Dohong ; Harrison et al ), and monitoring set up to ensure that it is implemented correctly, sharing lessons where there have been issues. The aim of our research here was to gain a range of perspectives from a national level of peatland restoration, but it is clear that much more research is needed on the local community side.…”

“…While the remit of environmental restoration cross‐cuts the interests of multiple ministries, the Peatlands Restoration Agency (Badan Restorasi Gambut, BRG) was established to oversee the restoration in line with the policy target, via a “3Rs” approach. The 3Rs include rewetting through canal blocking and backfilling, revegetation, and revitalization of livelihoods to offer alternative, more sustainable options (Dohong ; Dohong et al ). Additional restoration activities are dispersed across Indonesia's peatlands and involve a range of different organizations and institutions, and receive support from different donors, ministries, and other groups.…”

Defining ecological restoration of peatlands in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Based on the literature (Kimball et al ; Dohong ), we grouped restoration activities into two groups: pre‐ and main restoration (Table ). The pre‐restoration activities, such as research and public consultation or socialization/campaign, would take place before restoration project implementation.…”

Smallholder perceptions of land restoration activities: rewetting tropical peatland oil palm areas in Sumatra, Indonesia

“…the process of assisting the recovery of peatland that has been degraded or damaged towards an agreed baseline condition (Ritzema et al 2014 ; Graham et al 2017 ; Dohong et al 2018 ) is a relatively new initiative in tropical areas (Page et al 2009 ). A range of management interventions have sought to restore degraded peatlands (Dohong 2017 ; Graham et al 2017 ; Jefferson et al 2020 ). Indonesia provides a useful case in which to investigate restoration interventions, because the national government pledged to restore more than 2 million ha of peatland by the end of 2020 (Wardhana 2016 ) across both plantation concessions and smallholder land, chiefly for the purposes of reducing peat fires and greenhouse gas emissions (Wardhana 2016 ; Evers et al 2017 ).…”

“…1 ). Concession-holders are responsible for restoration in plantation areas (Dohong 2017 ). In this paper, we focus on smallholder land.…”