Putting people at the heart of peatland conservation efforts in Borneo

Author: Anggrita Cahyaningtyas, CIFOR  |   December 20, 2019  |   Lessons Learned   |   Location

Fires occur regularly in landscapes around the world, from rainforests to grasslands. But in 2019 – a year with only slightly less-than-usual rainfall – the burning of large swathes of the Amazon forest and Indonesia’s peatlands ignited a global sense of urgency.

By targeting both multi-level policies and grassroots action, CIFOR has been building consensus on the best ways to reduce the risk of peatland fires in Indonesia.

With support from the Temasek Foundation, CIFOR has studied ways to foster effective community-based fire prevention and peatland restoration. Focusing on Dompas village, in the province of Riau on the island of Sumatra, researchers use participatory action research – a way to create social transformation through a series of intensive facilitation events and actions – to support a gradual shift in local communities’ behavior away from using fire to prepare land for farming.

In partnership with the University of Riau and local communities, CIFOR piloted an inexpensive, community-based monitoring system that applies the ‘3R restoration strategy’: re-wet; re-vegetate and re-vitalize livelihoods. Using a mobile app, residents measure groundwater and moisture levels in peatlands, and record efforts to plant trees and cash crops, and revitalize livelihoods by tracking and sharing data about pineapple and coconut harvests.

Dompas village is located outside the forest concessions, but another project located inside a forest concession aims to test a community-level business model in one of two test villages in Riau that use the Integrated Forestry and Farming System – a commitment by the Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Group to prevent fire and improve people’s livelihoods. The model aims to reduce the use of fire through partnerships between local communities and APP.

Through the five-year Measurable Action for Haze- Free Sustainable Land Management in Southeast Asia (MAHFSA) project, a joint initiative with the ASEAN Secretariat and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), CIFOR is working to develop evidence-based knowledge products to promote sustainable peatlands management and help reduce transboundary haze.

Article link: https://www.cifor.org/annualreport2019/grassroots-approach-to-stopping-fire-and-haze

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