Handling Peat Fires: New Strategy and Approach Needed

We are now realizing how big the economic, social and ecological costs that we have to bear as a consequence of our government's incapability to manage our peatland ecosystem in sustainable and wise manners. it has been many years the scientific communities advise and sending warnings to policy makers at all governmental levels that precautionary principles need to be put in place when dealing with and managing peatland ecosystem. Despite these advice and warning, however, governmental decision makers keep continuously giving out licenses for allowing peatland to be converted to other land uses notably for large scale activities of oil palm and industrial timber plantations aim at of making economic profits. Has our government been calculated how much economic profit that we have generated from those converting peatland activities compared to economic, social and ecological costs that we have paid due to peat fires and peat degradation? I am pretty sure say that our government has never considered and recognised the socio-economic-ecological values that peatland serves to our country and communities prior the peat conversion decision is made.

I reckon current peat fires disaster is the right momentum for whole stakeholders particularly government to review its all existing national and local regulatory and practices measures on peatland management so as to avoid recurrent issues happened again and again in many years to come. Therefore, the following suggestions need to be considered with respect to improving the country's peatland management in the future.

1. There is a necessary to review and strengthen existing regulatory and policy measures on peatland conservation, protection and utilisation by revising criteria not only on the basis of peat depth criteria (currently 3 meters regulatory threshold), but should be on the basis of economic, social and ecological values and services that peatland provides to our country, communities and ecosystem;
2. Massive restoration efforts need to be prioritised by whole stakeholders to restore existing degraded peatland areas so as to improve the socio-economic and ecological functions and values of those degraded peatland areas. Restorative measures and strategies such as water management (peat rewetting through canal & ditch blocking activities), vegetation management (maintaining natural regeneration, tree planting, seedling transplanting),  fires management (preventive and suppressive methods) and socio-economic interventions (sustainable livelihoods development) need to be simultaneously and integrally implemented.
3. National and local land use policies need to be adjusted and strengthen by promoting and allowing land swaps mechanisms for shifting out cultivation and production activities from peatland to non-peatland areas including land swaps between other non-forestland for other purpose (APL) with tree covers and forestland category with no tree covers in the national and local spatial policy (national and local spatial plans);
4. Massive awareness raising and education programs for stakeholders need to be planned and implemented so as to raise common understanding and awareness about the importance of implementing sustainable and wise use principles when managing peatland ecosystem. Those stakeholders include government policy makers, politicians, private sector and communities
5. Both National and local governments need to allocate adequate resources to improve and update its existing peatland database. It is pity to learn that as the largest contributor in terms of total area and peat carbon biomass in the tropics (over 40% and 65% of the total global tropical peatland area and peat carbon biomass respectively), Indonesia is failed to use its peatland resources potency as means to gain better bargaining position at global UNFCCC negotiation battles due to among others lack of and unreliable peatland database.

That's all my thoughts and hopefully we can move towards a better management approach in managing our peatland resources in the future with the presence of our new national government.

Note: This is article is taken from my comment to an article entitled: "Prolonged Haze Disrupts Flights, Schools', at the Jakarta Post (Monday, October 13, 2014)