Restoring tropical peat swamps might not seem like such an important thing, until you realize the extent of clearing and burning that occurs in places like Indonesia each year. The amount of carbon emitted is staggering even in comparison to that of the economic activities of a major developed country like Japan.

A common-sense approach to tropical peat swamp forest restoration in Southeast Asia

Tropical peat swamp forests (TPSFs) are found mainly in Southeast Asia and especially Indonesia. A total of 61% were lost between 1990 and 2015 and 6% remained in a pristine condition by 2015. Tropical peat swamps store vast amounts of carbon in their peat, but peat degradation, through drainage and fire, leads to high greenhouse gas emissions. This is gaining much international attention and, with it, policy initiatives and funding for restoration from local to landscape scales are being promoted. Unfortunately, although there is a now strong desire and need for TPSF restoration, methods are lacking. Ecological understanding is still at an early stage, and, even more so, in its applied use. There is an imbalance between the activities of TPSF restoration and sound ecological application. Furthermore, while many activities are underway and knowledge is being gained, these techniques are yet to be published. This article has been written to provide a common-sense, practical guide to tropical peatland forest restoration which summarizes what we know to date, while acknowledging the gaps in our understanding. Topics covered include species selection, land assessment, land selection, and appropriate nursery, transplanting, and monitoring methods. The authors make no apologies that in places this reads like a manual as, given the importance of tropical peatland recovery and the recent attention and funding opportunities available, it is essential we now provide techniques to restoration practitioners working on the ground, and a basic common-sense approach must be the starting point.

I actually did my masters research on subtropical peat wetlands, so I know a little bit about this. Peat is formed by organic matter decomposing slowly under anaerobic conditions under shallow standing water for long periods of time. Bacteria and other biological processes that turn carbon into carbon dioxide operate slowly under anaerobic conditions, and new organic matter is able to build up faster than it can be broken down and liberated into the atmosphere. The same plants that decompose into peat grow in the decomposing remains of their predecessors, so that new layers get added gradually over time. When you drain the water, conditions in the soil become aerobic, and especially under warm conditions the organic matter gets mineralized (turned into carbon dioxide gas) faster than it can form. This happens even outside the tropics and in the absence of fire (the Everglades for example have seen a lot of soil loss), but catch the organic matter on fire and you get a triple threat – a smoky mess that is very bad for human health, habitat loss, and liberation of enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Do this on an enormous scale and it is truly a catastrophe. The world is not making a whole lot of progress in slowing this situation down, let alone stopping it, let alone beginning to restore what is being lost.