Winrock International is helping restore Indonesia’s peatland in a way that will mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, slow land subsidence, combat the threat of fire, and support the tens of thousands of people who live and work there. I recently returned from a trip to Indonesia, where obstacles — and opportunities — are both in full view.

Michael Netzer, GIS and Remote Sensing Carbon Analyst at Winrock International

A land of oil palm, acacia and peat

From a small rise in elevation the Kampar Peninsula spreads before us, dominated by row upon row of oil palm trees. Beyond the horizon stretch plantations of acacia trees, feeding one of the largest pulp and paper industries in the world. Decades ago, a vast wetland forest covered this land, located about 85 miles west of Singapore on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Known as peatland, the forest grows atop a thick layer of spongy peat moss, which formed over tens of thousands of years as organic matter accumulated without decomposing in the marshy, coastal conditions.

Today, the 700,000 remaining hectares of peatland in the Kampar are draped over the mineral soil as deep as 10 meters in many areas. These peatlands, however, are threatened by the expansion of the oil palm and acacia plantations that now cover over 70 percent of the landscape — the result of cheap available land, corporate and economic interests, large government incentives, and corruption that allowed large areas of land to be granted by local leaders to the highest bidder.

Oil palm and acacia threaten the natural peatland because these crops are not native to wetland environments and therefore require extensive ditching and draining of the peatland. When peatland is drained, the land shrinks and subsides — a process that threatens almost half of the current production land in the Kampar with collapse in the next 50 years. It also dries out the top few meters of peat, accelerates its decomposition, and releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Once these waterlogged soils dry out, they then become susceptible to fires that on dry years can become catastrophic.

The collapse of peatlands due to subsidence exacerbated by fires leaves only two options for Indonesia: restore the peatland through rewetting and finding alternative wetland tolerant production systems — or continue as usual until the collapse of both the ecosystem and the socioeconomic systems it supports.

Much of Indonesia’s peatland has been cleared to make way for oil palm and acacia plantations. Photo By Michael Netzer.

The situation is complex. The oil palm and acacia pulp and paper industries support the livelihoods of most of the smallholder farmers and constitute a large economy that the government relies on. Yet fire and land subsidence threaten these systems, and local and national governments are now keenly aware that alternatives to current peatland management need to be found. The question becomes, can these peatlands be rewetted and restored, and can the remaining wetland forest be protected without destroying the local economy? The answer to that question is critical to the future of Indonesia’s 14.9 million hectares of peatland, which accounts for a staggering 36 percent of the world’s tropical peatland. And that’s the question we have set out to investigate.

‘My Forest, My Breath’

As we drive east, we spot a plume of smoke from a fire. One of my local colleagues says it has been burning for a few days — a big fire for the wet season. After we move on, I overhear him calling the local authorities. Since the fires of 2015, the local government has initiated a number of programs to combat fire, including citizen alert systems like the one he is calling.

We’re going to a “Hutan Desa” (village forest), an area of forest that has been granted to the local villages as part of a government program meant to increase local authority of the land and foster better environmental stewardship. My motorbike guide puts on a dust mask that reads “Hutanku Napasku” or “My Forest, My Breath,” demonstrating the degree to which people in this region value forests.

Our motorbike guide dons a dust mask reading “Hutanku Napasku” or “My Forest, My Breath.” Photo By Michael Netzer.

On our way to the forest we pass a large, desolate clearing where an illegal oil palm plantation is in the initial stages of development. Where a wetland forest once stood there are now a series of large canals, still being dug by backhoe, and neat lines of oil palm seedlings planted among fallen logs. The wetland soil is now dry from draining.

This type of development is prohibited under Indonesian law passed after the fires of 2015. My guide explains that his village made a formal complaint to local authorities when they learned about the concession development, but the complaint clearly was not enough to stop it. These concessions only provide low-paying labor, he says, and his village is far more worried about the threat of fire. Despite changing policies and some encouraging national trends regarding peatland protection, this plantation is a stark reminder of how the push for development is always ready to continue its march forward.

However, oil palm is not the only culprit. Acacia trees that feed the massive pulp and paper mills to the south also drive land conversion and peatland forest loss. Acacia plantations account for over 70 percent of all the plantation land in the Kampar. These non-native trees grow quickly but require deep and well-organized drainage systems, which have caused some of the worst environmental impacts in the peninsula. Despite sustainability commitments from the pulp and paper industry, very little has been done, and around 35 percent of the acacia land is projected to collapse in the next 50 years.

There is an alternative to this plantation model. Fast-growing, wetland-tolerant trees species like mahang (Macaranga pruinosa) and geronggang (Cratoxylum arborescens) are economically viable and could replace acacia. The challenge is that even fast-growing wetland species grow at about half the rate of acacia, an unfortunate biophysical reality for the anaerobic nature of wetlands — and this modest loss in short-term profits is hard for the pulp and paper industry to accept even if it means long-term gains.

When I mention this perplexing lack of business forethought to local experts, most shrug in a resigned way. They remind me that in Indonesia the companies do not actually own the land, leasing it from the government instead for 50 to 100 years. By then, many of the leases will expire, and the companies will move on, leaving the cost and the damages to the local people and the government.

We reach the forest edge, park our bikes and begin to hack our way along an overgrown forest path. The forest canopy provides thankful refuge from the sun. Under a thick layer of leaflitter, the soil becomes spongy and our boots sometimes break through the top layer into the wet underneath.

We make our way into the peatland forest, which provides local communities with many sustainable products. Photo By Michael Netzer.

This forest does indeed provide the local communities with sustenance — or “breath.”  Our guide points out edible durian fruit growing from the canopy trees, and a type of guava called punak that provides a sweet and sour snack as we hike. We also munch on a small bitter leaf that apparently gives you energy while hiking. The forest also provides a number of economically valuable species, including sago palm (Metroxylon sagu), which produces large amounts of tasty starch that is commonly used in Southeast Asian noodles and breads; jelutong (Dyera costulata), a latex-producing tree that produces a high-quality food grade rubber; and nipa palm (Nypa fruticans), which produces light sugar that is not uncommon in Asian markets.

The canals and bits of open water in these remnant natural forests abound with small fish that provide a staple food source and small livelihood for local communities. Fishing was the traditional livelihood of the indigenous peoples of these peatlands. But as the natural forests peel away so do the fish, due to high water temperatures in the exposed canals and frequent fluctuations in water level. The sustenance opportunities supplied by the forest could be established without draining the peatland, all of which could help reestablish a more traditional, integrated and profitable lifestyle for the local people.

Seeking a solution to peatland forest degradation

Together with a number of local NGOS and the local government, Winrock has been developing demonstration plots and building capacity of the local community to re-wet the drained land and grow wetland-tolerant crops. Called paludiculture, these wetland cropping systems present a win-win approach for the region. However, there are challenges with paludiculture. Most local communities lack the resources to either adequately re-wet and restore the peatlands that have been drained, or to know what types of different crops or commodities could be grown on the re-wetted peat.

Winrock demonstration plots for paludiculture offer an alternative to the peatland degradation caused by oil palm and acacia plantations. Photo By Michael Netzer.

This is where Winrock comes in. Paludiculture allows for the restoration of the peatland, and in turn combats fire, land subsidence and greenhouse gas emissions while providing an economically viable alternative income for local people. In these small garden plots, annual crops like pineapple and chili pepper are being planted that can provide the local community with short-term profits. Intercropped with the annuals are longer-term perennials like sago and jelutong. Once mature, these crops have the potential to replace oil palm as the primary income for these local communities. And on the fringes of the demonstration plots grow mahang and geronggang trees. Not just an alternative to the pulp and paper industry, these trees can also serve as a wood-energy crop for markets in Japan and South Korea.

Based on Winrock’s research, these paludiculture perennial crops have the potential, if developed appropriately, to scale into large commodities generating higher profits per hectare than oil palm for the local community.

A truck rumbles through the cleared peatland. Photo By Michael Netzer.

As a reminder of the challenge before us, a procession of trucks loaded with acacia rumble by the demonstration plot. They’re heading to the nearby dock on the Siak River, where they will be loaded onto boats and transported to a local mill. In a sense the trucks symbolize one possible future for this area, one in which the peatland is doomed to collapse. These paludiculture cropping systems offer a different future, replacing business-as-usual with a sustainable, economically viable alternative that restores the ecosystem services that once protected this fragile peatland.

If you have ever been part of designing and implementing a large event you will recognize the need to start well in advance. In our case we started planning the Wallace Center’s fifth National Good Food Network (NGFN) conference — an important biannual networking and programming event — 18 months ahead of time.  We lined up over 40 breakout sessions, five plenaries with 20 panelists, 10 pre-conference trainings and local site visits — and we registered almost 500 people for the event, which was held in New Orleans March 10 ­­– 13. Little did we know that our timeline was to intersect with that of COVID-19.

Perhaps prophetically, we designed NGFN 2020 to recognize that we are at a pivotal moment in food systems change; that after years of seeking to shift the food system to be more healthy, green and equitable, those of us involved in this work would be well served to take stock of where we  have made progress and where haven’t, examine what is working and what is not, and honestly look at who is being left out.  Despite our collective years of work and the gains we have made, there is still a long way to go, which calls on us to be more strategic, collaborative and collective in our approach. Our stated theme and guiding light was “A More Just Vision: Collaborating on the Future of Good Food.”  Now that we are weeks into this global pandemic, it’s clear that we are indeed at a pivotal moment in how we feed ourselves — and a more just vision is what we desperately need.

While in New Orleans for NGFN 2020, we felt the tremors of how business as usual was quickly changing. Although there was no quarantine at the time, dozens of speakers and many funders and public sector allies were grounded with non-essential travel bans. Members of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service,  a leading conference sponsor, were encouraged not to travel, yet they showed up in force and told participants that the work we were doing together at the conference was “mission critical” and they needed to be there.  Those who manage regional food hubs and processing centers, especially those with significant sales to schools, universities and other food service accounts, had begun to receive notice of canceled orders. They were tasked with calling their farmers to inform them of these disruptions and working with them to find alternative markets. They had to grapple with the overnight loss of 30 to 50 percent of sales and its effect on employees, suppliers and community.

During the conference, over 50 participants swiftly convened in an emergency session to try to make sense of this in real time, to help each other think through how to respond back home and how to catalyze action. The group drafted a call to action to government, philanthropy, companies and others to quickly address the needs of households, farmers, farm workers and small food businesses.  Following the conference, the Wallace Center created a COVID-19 Response Group Listserv, which is connecting over 700 food and farm advocates and conference participants to identify and share innovations and needs as everyone quickly transitions to a new reality.

Currently we are seeing a tremendous amount of innovation and leadership among good food value chain organizations. For example, the Common Market in Philadelphia, which lost a large part of their sales as schools and universities closed, is now adding to their employee roster after being contracted by the City of New York to pack and deliver 3,000 boxes a day of regionally sourced foods for emergency relief. 4P Foods in Virginia has stepped into a regional coordination role utilizing the knowledge and infrastructure of 14 food hubs up and down the East Coast to address food insecurity while steering philanthropic funds into local procurement by connecting farmers to food access points and markets. In New Orleans, a diverse group of leading food systems organizations including Market Umbrella, Recirculating Farms Coalition, SPROUT NOLA, Liberty’s Kitchen and the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee teamed up with community-based distributor Top Box Foods Louisiana to rapidly co-create a multi-farm community-supported-agriculture box for home delivery. Within one week of the city’s stay-in-place order they were distributing hundreds of boxes weekly to community members. Examples like these are popping up all over the country, proving the resilience of local and regional food systems.

This pandemic is showing us that we need a food system capable of responding to a crisis that cripples core links in the supply chain. Various parts of the conventional food system are cracking or breaking down; millions of low-income Americans of all backgrounds rely on the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the emergency food systems, both of which are constrained by social distancing measures, increased demand, and arcane rules that inhibit adaptation. The current situation is revealing what many have been saying for a long time — that systemic racism has made communities of color more vulnerable to shocks to our basic systems, including shocks to the food system. Most essential workers in agriculture, slaughterhouses, meat packing plants, food service and restaurants are indigenous, black, brown and other people of color working for low wages with no benefits, leaving them with few resources to ride the crises out. Immigrant farmworkers and food chain workers are especially vulnerable, as they have no access to a social safety net.

Two years ago, our team at the Wallace Center committed to center racial equity in our work, and for NGFN 2020 we took this commitment seriously. Starting with a large and diverse conference advisory committee, we set out to elevate and amplify all voices to ensure that the conference reflected the entirety of the good food movement. We were extremely intentional about inviting people of color to speak on plenary panels, about prioritizing breakouts sessions that directly address issues of structural racism in the food system and providing travel scholarships for people from frontline communities who would otherwise not be able to attend.  As a result, 67 percent of plenary speakers and a growing number of conference attendees identified as people of color, and 62 percent of participants were joining us for the first time, indicating that we are expanding our audience. We view this as a significant step toward centering racial equity at the Wallace Center. Check out this short video made from footage at the conference.

If there was ever a time to expand the fundamental goals of our food system to include resilience and equity, this is it. Federal funds via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and other vehicles should put in place resiliency plans and ensure procurement practices and safety nets that support more place-based food and farming systems that provide healthy and affordable food, cost-of-living jobs, and wealth creation opportunities in communities across America. There is a very real danger that we emerge from this crisis with an even more consolidated food system that trades resilience and community health and wealth for one that continues to push people on the margin off the edge. Establishing thriving regional food and farming systems begins with reducing barriers to entry for farming, requiring use of regenerative production practices, and investing in innovation and infrastructure for handling, processing and distributing food through a diversity of market channels. These are righteous steps along the path toward “A More Just Vision: Collaborating on the Future of Good Food” — and the Wallace Center is committed to taking them.

In the weeks leading up to my trip last month to work onsite with the USDA-funded Creating Linkages for Expanded Agricultural Network (CLEAN) in Laos, the pandemic that has now interrupted daily life in many parts of the world had not yet reached its current proportions.

It was my first scheduled trip to support a field team in my new role as senior content manager at Winrock, and I didn’t want to cancel. I’d braved dengue, malaria, yellow fever and sleeping sickness while living in Africa and had avoided chikungunya, typhoid, hepatitis and other maladies during a half-decade in Asia. As an old friend from Myanmar wrote before I departed: “Do not worrying about the virus because you had lived in Myanmar for too long, so your immune system has been upgraded to overcome all the viruses.”

Of course, he was only kidding. On the morning of my scheduled flight from Little Rock, I got a call from Global Safety and Security Director Tobias Friedl, informing me that all non-essential Winrock travel was postponed. Since I was already scheduled to depart that day, I could still opt to travel, but must reroute return flights to avoid Korea and China.

I decided to go. I arrived in Seoul at 4 a.m. on February 25, enjoying extra leg and arm room on my flights due to empty seats next to me. At Incheon, I experienced the impact of the virus, with the airport less than 25 percent full, and 95 percent of people wearing masks. I deplaned through a gauntlet of infrared temperature scanners manned by Korean medical personnel wearing masks, gowns and caps. I felt conspicuous without my own personal protective equipment and paid $12 for two paper masks at an airport pharmacy.

As I boarded for Vientiane, the attendant motioned me to pull my mask up, and I later realized I was wearing it upside down. I landed in Laos and arrived at a nearly empty hotel.

Mr. Boonchuy is manager of a dried-sliced cassava aggregation point in Champasak Province in southwestern Laos. Representatives from a grain storage company were able to reach the Lao Cassava Association through a WhatsApp network that connects some cassava farmers to processors, buyers and suppliers. Photo: Timothy D. May

At that point in late February, the CLEAN team, led by Chief of Party Alex Dahan, was aware the virus could soon alter their work plans. Staff were under guidance to keep away if they felt sick, office spaces were cleaned carefully, and hand sanitizer abounded. But with no cases yet reported in Laos, activities continued as scheduled.

I was lucky to attend one of the project’s major events, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Inspectors’ training with provincial and district Agriculture and Forestry Departments staff, led by the government’s Clean Agriculture Standards Centre, held in the usually booming adventure town of Vang Vieng. A haven for climbers, spelunkers and tubers on the Nam Song River, the picturesque town was sadly empty. Our hotel had few occupants other than CLEAN and government staff assembled for the training.

Mr. Seng sells his dried-sliced cassava to Thai or Vietnamese buyers who export it. He is interested in learning about GAP strategies to increase yields and protect his soil. Photo: Timothy D. May

Alex Dahan and Phiengphaneth Chanthalansy, the project’s communications manager (who goes by “Pik”), and I monitored the news as the virus escalated in Korea, Italy and Iran, and began to spread through communities in the U.S., eventually reaching even Little Rock. On March 12, when President Trump restricted travel from Europe, I decided it was time to return to the U.S. I was  booked on the first available flight to Singapore, then through San Francisco and Denver back to Little Rock.

Since my return, the first few coronavirus cases in Laos have been reported, but CLEAN colleagues in Laos are adjusting well to changed work conditions. And I’m appreciating the gift I received from Pik right before I left the country — a packet of masks, in case I couldn’t find any in the U.S.

On U.N.’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science, February 11, Winrock salutes all the girls and women our projects educate and empower — as well as the female scientists on our staff, who use their talents to help societies thrive.

Last year I was selected to join the fourth cohort of Homeward Bound, a global leadership program that is choosing 100 women a year for 10 years to equip them with increased leadership capabilities, tools and a skillset to influence policy and decision-making that shapes our planet.

Homeward Bound drives home the point that the crisis of climate change is also a crisis of leadership, with decision-makers prioritizing immediate and small-scale profit over collaborative medium- and long-term benefits and with a shortsighted vision that fails to see sustainability as an opportunity for growth.

“Part of the attraction of this program is that it gives you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Antarctica for three weeks.” Photo: Blanca Bernal

Homeward Bound asks the question, what if more women in leadership roles can help abate both the leadership and climate change crisis? This thought is supported by three general facts that remain true around the world:

1. That women’s contributions as decision-makers, stakeholders and experts are often overlooked across professional fields because of socioeconomic barriers and biases, both conscious and unconscious. These barriers and biases result in a 30-percent ratio of women to men in positions of leadership and responsibility ;
2. That women are just as capable of leading as men are, and by removing barriers and giving women toolsets, support, equal promotion opportunities, and a growing professional network, they will also thrive in their professional fields;
3. That women’s leadership styles tend to have a legacy and long-term mindset that favors inclusive and collaborative approaches. Studies have shown that women prioritize environmental considerations in their purchasing and lifestyle choices more than men do. In fact, countries with high female parliamentary representation have been more prone to ratify environmental treaties and pass more environmental legislation than those dominated by men.

“Homeward Bound asks the question, what if more women in leadership roles can help abate both the leadership and climate change crisis?” Photo: Blanca Bernal

Environment is indeed a field that attracts women, and yet the principal investigators, senior professors, or program directors around me have rarely been women. One of the many consequences of losing women as one looks up the career ladder is the loss of valuable human talent and creative potential.

What would scientific progress look like if we had more women at higher levels, and if women currently advancing in science had more visibility and support? Visibility matters — and having fewer women than men in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) makes it harder to inspire girls to become scientists. The same is true in non-scientific fields. When women are not seen as progressing in their careers because of reasons unrelated to merit or performance, this discourages other women from making similar career choices and contributes to an erroneous perception of women’s performance ability. A program like Homeward Bound empowers women to help correct these deficiencies.

Part of the attraction of this program is that it gives you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Antarctica for three weeks with 99 astonishing women who are working every day to make this world a better place. And it gives you the chance to learn from faculty the caliber of Christiana Figueres (who led the Conference of the Party Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2015 and also served on the Winrock Board), Fabian Dattner (founder of Homeward Bound) or Musimbi Kanyoro (president of the Global Fund for Women). If you were not hungry for a more sustainable and equal world before, you will be after experiencing both the company and the place during those three weeks.

Antarctica gives you an overview effect that must be similar to what astronauts feel when they look at the Earth from space — beautiful, powerful and fragile — and the capacity and drive of the women that join the program is uplifting evidence of how powerful untapped potential can be.

“Antarctica gives you an overview effect that must be similar to what astronauts feel when they look at the Earth from space — beautiful, powerful, and fragile.” Photo: Blanca Bernal

On February 2, 1971, representatives from a handful of countries gathered in the small Iranian city of Ramsar on the Caspian Sea. Their historic mandate — to sign the first modern agreement between governments to preserve natural resources — built upon a decade of negotiations by environmentalists concerned by the escalating loss of wetland habitat for migratory water birds.

February 2, 2020, marks the 49^th anniversary of the treaty known as the Ramsar Convention, which is celebrated each year as World Wetlands Day. Through the cooperation of 90 percent of the world’s governments, the treaty aims to prevent the loss of wetlands and conserve existing ecosystems. This is important because wetlands provide vital ecosystem services to humankind, from mitigating climate change and purifying water to providing food and resources for billions of people.

Winrock International is working to support the goals of World Wetlands Day in Indonesia, which as one of the most wetland-rich countries in the world is on the frontlines of the global battle to fight climate change and preserve the environment.

The Importance of Peatlands

In the last century, uncontrolled development has driven the disappearance of more than 70 percent of wetlands worldwide, and Indonesia is on a similar track. It is estimated that over half of the country’s rainforests have been cleared for development and the expansion of commodities such as oil palm, rubber and wood fiber for paper. Much of this deforestation has occurred on Indonesia peatland ecosystems that cover 15 million hectares – a staggering 32 percent of the world’s tropical peatland.  This peatland forest is home to some of the most iconic and endemic species on earth, including orangutans, Sumatran tigers, leopards and species of fish found nowhere else on earth.

A helicopter helps extinguish a fire at Kubu Raya district, in West Kalimantan province. Once rare, fires are now a yearly occurrence in Indonesia’s peatlands.

Peatlands are deep organic wetland ecosystems that function as vast stores of fresh water (on which local communities depend) as well as centuries-old carbon sinks that help regulate global climate. When peatlands are drained and cleared, the freshwater they store is lost and carbon dioxide is released into the air. No longer buoyed by water, the land surface dries out and sinks, increasing the risk of deadly floods and forest fires. An estimated 300,000 hectares of peatland rainforest is cleared annually in Indonesia, an area the size of Rhode Island. Once rare, fires are now a yearly occurrence in Indonesia’s peatlands. These fires release enormous greenhouse gas emissions and  blanket the landscape with smoke, costing between 0.5 and 1.9 percent of Indonesia’s GDP and causing numerous health problems.

Fighting Back

Indonesia is committed to reversing this trend and is making progress through such international commitments as its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement and the signing of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indonesia has also created Green Districts to bridge development and conservation, and, after particularly destructive fires in 2015, formed a new agency called the Peatland Restoration Agency, which is tasked with restoring two million hectares of peatland — the largest wetland restoration effort in the world.

Sustainable Development Holds the Key

Winrock International, in partnership with Packard Foundation, is supporting the development of the Green District in Siak, an administrative division on the east coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, located across the Malacca Strait from Singapore. This Green District will help drive a transformational shift in jurisdictional peatland and forest management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve smallholder livelihoods and support sustainable land use planning.

Winrock is piloting new, wetland-tolerant cropping systems that can help communities transition to more sustainable peatland uses.

Winrock’s work in Indonesia has three components. First, we are working with the local government and civil society organizations to develop the policy framework of the jurisdictional Green District. Second, we are developing and piloting an innovative real-time peatland hydrological monitoring system that allows Siak to manage peatland hydrology to reduce risks of fire and peatland loss. Finally, we’re piloting new, wetland-tolerant cropping systems that can help communities that live and work in the peatland to transition to more sustainable peatland uses beyond drainage and deforestation. Together, these strategies hold the promise of a true win-win scenario.

Over the last four years Winrock along with local partners has established itself as a technical leader and key player in the development of this burgeoning Green District. We have done so by fostering trust and coordination across district and national government agencies, with local farmers and village leaders, and with private sector companies that all have a stake in Siak’s future. Siak is at the forefront of Green District development in Indonesia, and its continued success promises a roadmap for other districts to follow.