a) Problem,  background, and objective

The degradation of tropical peat swamps in Southeast Asia has increasingly become problematic in the context of international environmental conservations. Due to their physical characteristics, tropical peat swamp forests have been difficult to utilize, and therefore, spared from development for a long time. However, drainage associated with plantation development of fast-growing and oil palm trees has led to a decrease in groundwater table levels and the drying of peat swamp forest. 

  This has in turn resulted in an increase in CO₂ emissions, by peat decomposition, and frequent fires (Hirano 2009, 2012, 2014). In Indonesia alone, an estimated 2.1 million hectares of forest –  most of them peatlands – that were burned in 2015 (Fig.1). The resultant haze caused incalculable damage to the local economy and has impacted the health of not only the local people, but also those in Malaysia and Singapore. In 2015, 0.5 million people in the region were diagnosed with upper respiratory infections. Haze has become a trans-boundary environmental, economic, and political issue.

  In Indonesia, the political and social situation around peatland has made the sustainable management of the peat environment a difficult task. Most peatland is classified as state forest, and state appropriation has created contestation, overlapping, and insecurity over forest tenure conditions (RRI 2008, RRI 2012, Sunderlin, Hatcher, and Liddle 2008, White and Martine 2002). Companies that were given concessions in peatland areas developed plantations, roads, and canals under weak state regulations, attracting people to move in. The complexity and vagueness of land possession has prevented the local villagers from managing peatland sustainably and continuously. As a result, the peat swamp has dried up, resulting in degradation, and in turn, widespread fires. (10, , 55, 56,57, 58, 59, 65)

  How can society develop institutions to control and manage these fires and mitigate degradation? Our research project will conduct transdisciplinary research into the social-ecological systems in tropical peatlands to understand and address their vulnerabilities. Ultimately the project intends to elucidate the transformability of environmentally vulnerable societies.

 

b) Methodology, structure and schedule

The methodology of the project is characterized by a deep commitment to local communities and policy processes that attempt to reach solutions. (Fig. 2) We aim to obtain concrete and detailed data of the transformation of peat environment and peatland communities in the villages of Tanjung Leban (Bengkalis district) and Rantau Baru (Plalawan district), Riau province, Indonesia. The research includes transdisciplinary approaches: surveying the socio-economic conditions of each household, investigating the socio-economic history of the peatland societies, establishing the institutions and organizations that promote participation in peatland restoration activities amongst villagers, arranging the application of paludiculture (Sustainable peatland livelihood activities, Fig.　3-1, 3-2), monitoring water levels, CO₂ emissions and biodiversity in the peat environment, examining the governance of peatland at the level of local and central governance, suggesting effective policy to administrators, and investigating the influence of haze. (see also Fig. 4.)

 

c) Expected results

Through our research activities based around peatland restoration in the main research villages, we will draw an integrated map of the peatland ecosystem, and establish a reliable management guideline that can be applied to peatland restoration in other areas. In addition, by comparing the situations of peatlands in various areas, we will explore the characteristics of peat environment and societies in the world and address the transformability of environmentally vulnerable societies.

 

d) Project organization and membership

The project is composed of three work groups, consisting of researchers, officials and NGO members of Japanese and Indonesian origin, amongst other nationalities (Fig. 5).

 

1) The Community, Corporate and Governance Group deals with the socio-economic matters of peatland societies. Study will focus on livelihood strategies, land tenure, and resource use to identify factors that cause peat degradation. They will work with local institutions and organizations at the village level to establish mitigation and adaptation practices. This group consists of economists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, experts on company management, and experts on administration/governance.

2) The Material Cycling Group conducts intensive multi-disciplinary research, particularly on water and material cycles, in several representative peatlands in Southeast Asia for the integration of natural and social scientific mapping to better understand peatland ecosystems. The group also investigates the influence of peatland haze and fires, and assesses the health hazards associated with them (Fig. 7). The group consists of hydrologists, meteorologists, botanists and pedologists.

3) The International Research Group compares the social and ecological situations of peatlands in the world, and integrates experiences on sustainable peatland management. This group organizes international workshops and seminars to promote communications between academic institutions. The members include experts on international relations, political science, and experienced scientists who conduct research within peatland outside of Indonesia. 

 

e) Contribution to the program 

The project has always paid special attention to the motives of the stakeholders. That is; the conservation efforts carried out by governments and NGOs, the livelihood of the local people, and the profit-making of the companies involved. This is in order to look for solutions that can satisfy all parties and promote fruitful entanglements and interactions between them. These explorations are in accordance with the motivations that were addressed in the Program Statement. In addition, the attempt to consider the transformation of peatland societies provides a case for the social and economic development in response to environmental change in Asia.

 

CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROGRAM 

A study summarizing the relationship between climate change and fires in tropical peatland (Achievement 23) is an attempt to clarify how global environmental change will affect regional and specific disasters. This is very important as a basis for considering the relationship between environmental change and society, which is a major framework of Program 1. Attempts to analyse the impact of peat fires on society and its response to social fires that occurred frequently this year were based on elucidating both the “Asian development path” and “Motivation for survival” listed in Program 1. 

Structuring the program around the relationship between the three central themes of the History of Development, Peat Environment and Climate Change enables us to discuss the sustainable development of peatland societies. Namely, in integrating processes between studies on climate change, especially rainfall patterns/changes, and the characteristics of peatland exploitation, we can identify the characteristics of vulnerability and the processes of transformability at play. Vulnerable peat swamp forests cannot be restored and the degradation of peatlands has led to catastrophes, but now people aim to restore the peatlands, albeit not to their original state as peat swamp forests but instead as vegetated rewetted peatlands through social and political means within local societies, allowing for the sustainable integration of peatland environments within the scope of their livelihoods. Such discussions have led to engagement with administrators aimed at negotiating effective peatland restoration programs in which people can positively participate (see also Fig, 3 and Section 4). The subject matter of transformability thus contributes to mapping Asia’s paths of socio-economic development in relation to climate change and environmental history and allows for the examination of the motivations that affect people’s livelihoods, as noted in the Program 1 statement.

In addition, some research activities can respectively contribute to the aim of the Program 1. Some members in the Community, Corporate and Governance group and Material Cycling group began implementing a social forestry program in the village of Tanjung Leban. This is following new government policies which legitimize the community’s ownership of forests that were hitherto designated as state forest. Such policies are facilitated by the community practice of social forestry. It has been broadly observed in other Asian countries that, once the state government claims the state-ownership of most areas of land, the government gradually guarantees the people land rights over time. Through the implementation and observation of the social forestry program, we intend to maintain a process of socio-political development reliant upon land rights throughout the rapid transformation of peatland environments. 

       

PROJECT PROGRESS DURING THE FR PERIOD TO DATE.

During the period of Full Research, the project formulated research organization, structure and network holding a number of seminars and workshops. For example, following the MOU signed by RIHN, Kyoto and Hokkaido universities and Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG: Badan Restorasi Gambut) in August 2016, we invited the Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry, the Chief of Presidential Exclusive Office, and the Director and Deputies of BRG to Japan and held some seminars in April 2017. In February 2018, RIHN, BRG and JICA held an international seminar in Jakarta for exchanging the tentative results of peatland restoration activities and research. In July 2018 and March 2019, RIHN and Kyoto University in collaboration with JICA held a conference with key local government officials in Bengkalis district and organized a social forestry workshop together with local people at the village of Tanjung Leban in Bengkalis district. In March 2019, the 3rd Anniversary of Indonesia-Kyoto Collaborative Agreements for Peatland Restoration in Indonesia organized by RIHN, Kyoto University, the government of Indonesia was held. The research networks established through these seminars/workshops can enormously contribute to the progress of our project as trans-disciplinary study, and we will continuously try to hold them (For specification on the seminars/workshops during FR3 see Annex 2).

  In FR1 (April 2017- March 2018), each of three work groups also made the progress of their respective research topics and collaborated with local peoples. For example, based on the result of previous study, in which the stronger the land rights, the better the management even after the burning of the peatlands; the Community, Corporate and Governance Group suggested to central and local officials that the government should give local people living around peat environment the property rights to the land that they have cultivated. As a result, the policies of social forestry, which allow people the right to use the land for 35 years, have made progress in Riau at present. The Material Cycling group made the preparation of collecting systematic basic data in order to create the model of peatland restoration based on rewetting, reforestation and assessing the impact of haze caused by the peatland fires. As a result, for example, a team of the group started a collaboration with JICA development program and implementing paludiculture through social forestry adopting the scientific knowledge obtained from researches. In addition, a team analyzed data of air pollution, which has been continuously obtained from the monitoring of PM2.5, NO, O₃, CO and NO₂ in Pekanbaru, and one of the results of this analysis has been published by a leading international journal. The International Research Group developed collaborative ties with the Russian Science Academy, and the Far East Asian Branch in order to carry out collaborative study on peatlands. The group discussed the prospects of a joint research program, especially concerned with the ecological, social and epidemiological studies on peatland fire.

In FR2 (April 2018- March 2019), we have tried to integrate the studies taking place within History of Development, Peat Environment and Climate Change, with the driving concepts of Vulnerability and Transformability being at the centre of our research (see Section 4). Vulnerability is the degree to which a system, or part of a system, may react adversely during the occurrence of a hazardous event (Posey 2009), on the other hand transformability is the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social (including political) conditions render the existing system untenable. (Walker, et al 2004). 

  Following these concepts and approaches, the Community, Corporate and Governance Group explored the history of the peatland’s exploitation at the hands of companies and local people for the purpose of studying vulnerability. Through these studies, we found out the vulnerability of the governance and trade related to peatland exploitation. The Material Cycling Group started the data collection of health hazard caused by haze in cooperation with hospitals in the Riau and Central Kalimantan provinces. The network of monitoring air pollutant during peatland fires has expanded over time, with some of the findings being published in an international journal. The group also published a thesis, in which they showed the dynamics of CO₂ and CH₄. The group studied from the locus of material cycling, recording vegetation, water and soil changes affected by processes that contribute to peatland degradation, especially fire. 

In terms of the studies on transformability, a team began promoting the implementation of social forestry in combination with the peatland restoration program. This approach would entail higher participation amongst locals with the peatland restoration program as it would lead to the improvement of their land rights. So far, the implementation of the social forestry and peat restoration programs have enabled land disputes to be negotiated. We refer to this approach as the “entitlement approach”, as the improvement of legislation concerning land rights improves issues surrounding entitlement. In securing land titles, we can in turn secure the active participation of local people in the peatland rehabilitation program. The transformability process does not only entail a change in the landscape, but also an improvement to people’s livelihood and entitlement. The improvements of peatland societies supported by innovations in paludiculture technology, organization and agrarian structures consist of the factors that form the new model of peatland society that can potentially spread to other areas. 

Our idea of transformability is not limited to the local society. A member of the Community, Corporate and Governance Group has found that, as a result of the rapid expansion of palm-oil production (which includes the pervasive planting activity on the peatland) and the export of crude palm oil, that the production of tradable goods has been stagnant in Indonesia while consumption and the production of non-tradable goods grew. This resource intensive development, or primary commodity intensive development that sacrifices industrialization, or the development of tradable goods industry, displays a contrast with East Asia’s export-oriented industrial activity. Both patterns of development contain bias, so we intend to establish a peatland society that is not biased towards primary commodity intensive development. We intend to develop a society that does not sacrifice the environment, industry and agriculture. One of the solutions is to curb the expansion of oil palm planting on the peatland, with the preferred alternative being to develop the oleo-chemical industry and paludiculture that involves the development of the processing industry. 

 

PROGRESS SINCE THE LAST REPORTING 

As for the progress of the research project as a whole, we have elaborated on the research concept (see Section 4) and reinforced the PR activities (Fig. 9). On the other hand, each work group has made progresses toward drawing an integrated map of the peatland and land surface condition. Due to the effects of El Nino (modoki) and dipole mode, many peat fires occurred in both Sumatra and Kalimantan islands since July of this year, and the air pollution data of these fires were obtained.

The Community, Corporate and Governance Group has made progress in their studies, especially on water management and land use / ownership mapping at the village level. The group started to fix the borders between hamlets utilizing World View satellite images. We printed out the satellite images and showed them to the community members and walked around hamlets with GPS trackers together with the community members to fix the hamlet borders. We also utilized a drone in order to make clearer the village conditions. Hamlets have borders with the neighbouring villages, but there was no serious border conflict between the M village and the neighbouring villages in fixing the hamlet borders of M village partly because the M village head had a better communication with the neighbouring village heads and informal leaders  (Fig 7). In the next stage, they checked the land utilization especially in the peat land. We conducted an intensive research only on RW (Sub village) 2 and 6 and the northern half of RW1 because of the time limitation. The satellite and drone images vividly showed that the largest parts of peat land are utilized for oil palm plantation and they are owned by outsiders with a large tract of land. 

The Material Cycling Group reconstructed 22-years of historical monthly rainfall data at 24 colonial observation stations in Sumatera, Indonesia during the Dutch colonial era 1879–1900. Regional and interannual variations of the western and eastern side of Sumatera are analysed by using monthly rainfall data and daily rainfall data during 1879–1900 and 1971–2014, respectively. Comparison of the seasonal cycle in both periods indicate that the recent monthly rainfall amounts increased (decreased) in June–December (January–May), remarkably at the stations in the northern side of 0.5°S latitudes, the eastern coast. They utilized Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) to collect high-resolution RGB imagery and multispectral images for the study area. The data were used to develop general land use/land cover (LULC) information for the site. This study indicates that UAS-based FVC estimations can be used for observing fast-growing acacia trees at a fine scale resolution, which may assist current restoration programs in Indonesia (Notable Output 7).

As for paludiculture, the members persuaded the villagers to participate in the restoration activities and also held a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in the village of Tanjung Leban, Bengkalis district. As a result, more than thirty households located on about 200-hectare area of private land decided to join the paludiculture program. Villagers planted vanilla and indigenous trees, rewetting the dried peatlands. The group has investigated the soil and plant changes following the occurrence of fire to clarify the vulnerability of peatland and develop an innovative method of paludiculture. 

The International Research Group held a workshop in May 2019 and confirmed a framework compatible with the situations of peatlands around the world. The group investigated the social influences of forest fire in Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia. They obtained the air pollution data of these fires were since July 2019, and held an epidemiology workshop at Palangka Raya University in December 2019. 

 

MOST NOTABLE OUTPUTS TO DATE 

・Books

1. KOZAN, O., 2019, Trend Analysis of Rainfall Characteristics in the Kemena and Tatau River Basins, Sarawak., Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Human–Nature Interfaces on the Plantation Frontier, Springer

2. MIZUNO, K., FUJITA S Motoko, KAWAI Shuichi, ed, 2016, Catastrophe and Regeneration in Indonesia’s Peatlands: Ecology, Economy and Society, Kyoto-CSEAS Series on Asian Studies 15, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 466p. 

・Theses

3. DAS, R., WANG, X., ITOH, M., SHIODERA, S., KUWATA, M., 2019, Estimation of Metal Emissions from Tropical Peatland Burning in Indonesia by Controlled Laboratory Experiments Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 124, 

4. ISHIKURA K, HIRATA R, HIRANO T, OKIMOTO Y, WONG GX, MELLING L, AERIES E, KIEW F, LO K, MUSIN K, WAILI J, ISHII Y, 2019, Carbon dioxide and methane emissions from peat soil in an undrained tropical peat swamp forest. Ecosystems

5. SATO, Y., 2019, “Reemerging Developmental State in Democratized Indonesia” in Y.Takagi, V.Kanchoochat, and T.Sonobe eds. Developmental State Building: The Politics of Emerging Economies, Springer, pp.69-96.

6. AS-SYAKUR, A. R., K. IMAOKA, K. OGAWARA, M. D. YAMANAKA, T. TANAKA, Y. KASHINO, I W. NUARSA and T. OSAWA, 2019,10, Analysis of spatial and seasonal differences in the diurnal rainfall cycle over Sumatera revealed by 17-year TRMM 3B42 dataset. SOLA 15:216-221. DOI:10.2151/sola.2019-039 .

7. IIZUKA K., T. KATO, N. SI. SILSIGIA, A.Y. SOUFININGRUM and O. KOZAN., 2019, Estimating and Examining the Sensitivity of Different Vegetation Indices to Fractions of Vegetation Cover at Different Scaling Grids for Early Stage Acacia Plantation Forests Using a Fixed-Wing UAS, Remote Sensing 11(15) 

8. YAMANAKA, M.D., OGINO, S.-Y., WU, P.-M., HAMADA J.-I., MORI, S., MATSUMOTO, J. and SYAMSUDIN, F., 2018/04, Maritime continent coastlines controlling Earth's climate. Prog. Earth Planet Sci. 5(21):1-28. (a review, Special Call for Excellent Papers on Hot Topics: 5. Asia Monsoon Hydroclimate) 

9. SAKABE, A., ITOH, M., HIRANO, T., KUSIN, K., 2018/09, Ecosystem-scale methane flux in tropical peat swamp forest in Indonesia. Global Change Biology 24:5123-5136. DOI:10.1111/gcb.14410 

10. KUWATA M., G. G. N.-NAGANATHAN, T. MIYAKAWA, M. F. KHAN, O. KOZAN, M. KAWASAKI, S. SUMIN, M. T. LATIF, 2018/08, Constraining the Emission of Particulate Matter from Indonesian Peatland Burning Using Continuous Observation Data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 123(17):9828-9842. DOI:10.1029/2018JD028564 

11. IIZUKA K., K. WATANABE, T. KATO, N. A. PUTRI, Si. SILSIGIA, T. KAMEOKA and O. KOZAN, 2018/08, Visualizing the Spatiotemporal Trends of Thermal Characteristics in a Peatland Plantation Forest in Indonesia: Pilot Test Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs). Remote Sensing 10(1345):1-15. DOI:10.3390/rs10091345

RESEARCH PLAN

a) Integrated socio-ecological and fire studies at Tanjung Leban.  The mapping of the land to aid peatland rehabilitation, water management and paludiculture will be combined with a socio-economic household survey. This survey will pertain to the improvement of livelihood, socio-economic conditions such as the land titleship, the income of households and educational backgrounds in relation to the participation of people in the rehabilitation program, with the goal of identifying the effects of the rehabilitation program.

 

b) An environmental policy decision and its implementation by the new governor in Riau Province. In June 2018, the election for local governor was held in Riau province, with Syamsuar, who is a regent of Siak district having been elected for the upcoming term. He has made progress tackling environmental problems, surpassing the former governor who propelled the industrial development of peatlands in the province. It is an important task to explore the dynamics of environmental policies implemented by the new governor after March 2019 and clarify the structure of the governance of the environment at the provincial level. 

 

c) Counter-mapping in the village of Rantau Baru, Pelalawan district. A sub-group of the Community, Corporate and Governance group has arranged the production of a peatland map, with many villagers participating in the process in collaboration with local NGOs. This practice of action research is intended to reinforce the villagers’ land rights. We will clarify the processes of how counter-mapping stimulates the villagers’ motivations towards obtaining land rights and how the district government and acacia/oil palm companies are reacting to the movement. 

 

d) Comparative analysis of rescued rainfall data before and after deforestation. We have started digitalizing 19th century Dutch colonial data catalogued in "Regenwaarnemingen in Nederlandsch-Indie". We will analyse and compare them with operational (BMKG) data after deforestation (since the 1970s). We will also search for other climatological data and disaster records at the Dutch-Indonesian national archives. 

 

e) Rainfall variabilities of annual/diurnal cycles and El Niño. We have started analysing the interannual/interlocal variabilities of seasonal cycles of rainfall in Sumatra up to the Independence Era (1930s-60s). We will also analyse the diurnal cycles with a predawn peak of rainfall in Riau based on satellite observations. We will make drought cautions, based on these analyses and climate predictions alongside meteorological agencies/institutes.

 

f ) Radar hydrology and forest fire prevention. We have adopted a radar station at Sepahat fire-watch tower in Bukit Batu, Bengkalis, Riau, with the official clearance for radar installation from the local government (BPBD) of Bengkalis. We will start the continuous operation of radar observations following installation in collaboration with central-government agencies (BPPT and BRG). 

 

g) Change in forest properties and tree species traits according to soil type transitions from tropical heath to peat swamp forests We had conducted a permanent-plot census and architectural trait analysis for dominant tree species and understood the difference in forest dynamics between tropical heath and peat swamp forests in Central Kalimantan. We will establish a series of plots according to soil type transitions from tropical heath and peat swamp forests and clarify the environmental factors to explain the change of forest properties and tree species traits between these two types of forests.

 

 h) The relationship between species composition and environmental factors after the burning of grasslands in Indonesian peatlands. Since 2014, we have continued researching relationships between grassland communities and environmental factors following the burning of peatlands in several villages within Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province in Sumatra. We have identified several grassland communities from field research and statistical analysis, and clarified the relationship between these communities, as well as several environmental factors such as ground water level and water chemistry. We will extend our subject of study to various disturbed peatlands which have different level of disturbance severity and successional levels. We are also expanding our research area widely and test our results throughout the whole of Indonesia. Finally, we will come to general conclusions and plan a scenario for the recovery of disturbed peatlands in Indonesia.

 

i) Validation of land suitability for forest rehabilitation and the selection of native species for the rehabilitation of disturbed peatlands. We will establish the method to identify the land which is suitable for forest rehabilitation at the disturbed peatland. And, using experimental methods, we will clarify the ecological traits of native tree species found on-site produced by environmental adaptation and select the suitable species for forest rehabilitation there.

 

j) International comparative study on the current status, forest management and rehabilitation methods within tropical peatlands. We will conduct a written study on the current status of tropical peatlands and an international comparative study for forest management and the rehabilitation of it.

 

k) Management and strategies of oil palm and timber plantation’s companies in relation to the peatland use or peatland rehabilitation programs, and also their participation in the industrialization program for the down-stream industry. Impacts of oil palm and timber plantation’s activities to the Indonesian macro economy will be studied.