Contested values and climate change mitigation in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

In this chapter, various peat combustion properties, temporal and spatial peat fire occurrence in Kalimantan, and the peat fire index (PFI) for the early warning of peat fire were discussed. Firstly, tropical peat was sampled from Mega Rice Project (MRP) area in Central Kalimantan and analyzed in the laboratory. The flash point, ignition temperature and calorific value of tropical peat were measured by using a thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) and a bomb calorimeter. The ignition probability of tropical peat was estimated by using literature values. In fields of the study area, peat ignition test, surface temperature measurement of actual burning peat and peat fire propagation measurement were carried out to identify actual peat fire conditions. Secondly, recent seasonal and special fire occurrence trends in Kalimantan were discussed using analysis results of MODIS hotspots data (fires) and precipitation data (the 10 years data, from 2002 to 2011). The two provinces of Central and West Kalimantan have the different severe fire periods. The fire season in West Kalimantan started in early August and lasted until early September. On the other hand, the fire season in Central Kalimantan started in middle August and continued until early November. Finally, peat fire index (PFI) derived from monthly and daily rainfall data was proposed to estimate peat fire conditions. The PFI has a linear relationship to the annual lowest groundwater level in peatland with the coefficient of determination R2 = 0.84, and to the total number of hotspots observed by MODIS during the dry season from June to November in Central Kalimantan with R2 = 0.74. The PFI was found to be useful for the early warning of peat fire in tropical peatlands. The depth of combustible peat layer increased linearly with lowering of groundwater level in tropical peatlands.

Chapter 15 - Prospect of Sustainable Peatland Agriculture for Supporting Food Security and Mitigating Green House Gas Emission in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Dayak people have always taken the carrying capacity of the land into full consideration when opening the forest for growing rice (“ladang”). The Dayak use natural signs to decide the location of rice fields and they manage them with local knowledge. Upstream, the Dayak people use only shallow peat (“petak luwau”) near the riverbanks. In coastal areas, they use the “handel” system, which depends upon the hydrological behavior of twice daily tidal movement. The recent decrease in rice production by the over intensive canalization system resulted from the government's ignorance of the success of local people in implementing their local knowledge. The giant canals constructed as part of the Indonesian Central Government's Mega Rice Project to utilize peatland for agriculture were failures when compared with traditional canals in Central Kalimantan, namely, the “handel” and “anjir”. Presidential Decree 32/1990 declared that peatland with peat thickness less than 3 meters could be used for agriculture, while that with more than 3 meters should be conserved. Then, in 1996, the Mega Rice Project (MRP) in Central Kalimantan was established. However, rather than only considering the thickness of the peat layer to determine peatland utilization, land users should also consider information on the chemical properties of the bottom peat layer, hydrological status, local knowledge, culture of communities and marketability of proposed crops. Unfortunately, neglecting these factors when cultivating tropical peatland, especially deep peat in inland areas and also coastal peat, gives rise to unproductive land (“lahan tidur”). Peatland degraded by unsuitable agriculture must be restored using native tree species to achieve ecosystem stabilization. Thus, Presidential Decree 32/1990, which was formulated without first carrying out research, was a major factor leading to the failure of peatland utilization in Indonesia; it must be reformulated using knowledge of peatland's carrying capacity.

Indonesia has experienced severe tropical forest fires from a long time ago, mainly in El Niño years. However, previous studies showed that after 1997 forest and peat fires in Indonesia tend to occur every year in the dry season, even in non El Niño years. To clarify this recent pattern of incidence, we studied the fire situation in the Mega Rice Project (MRP) area, Central Kalimantan where large scale development of tropical swamp-forest has been carried out since 1996. To identify the causes of the recent severe peat fires, weather data for Palangkaraya from 1978 to 2007, hotspot data captured by the MODIS satellite, monthly Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies, and ground water level (GWL) data were analyzed. The results of the analysis clearly showed a relationship among the precipitation pattern of the dry season, GWL change, Niño 3.4 SST Anomalies, and fire occurrences. A pattern of low precipitation in the dry season decreased GWL and caused a peat fire peak in the middle of August when daily precipitation reached the minimum. These results suggest that large areas of bared peat in the MRP now has a high susceptibility to fire coupled with the precipitation pattern of the dry season.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the linguistic adequacy of the lexical resources used in climate change discourse in Mulanje district in order to determine how language of sustainability can be achieved to foster citizen participation in climate change mitigation. In Malawi, emphasis has been on creating messages without regard to the effect the language being used may have, thus resulting in misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the concepts and facts. This paper argues that the use of language of sustainability can be a critical factor in attainment of climate change mitigation. This paper draws its conclusions from the first stage of the research project which was aimed at examining the language used in the climate change mitigation project in Mulanje district and its impact on citizen participation in climate change mitigation projects. It was demonstrated that there is disconnection in the contextualisation of the language as it does not reflect the everyday use of the language by the local communities in the project area. This paper suggests that language must be reprocessed to meet the expectations of the local communities and must be contextually appropriate to the context of situation in which the discourse is taking place.

Tropical peat swamp forest is one of the wetland ecosystems on tropical peatlands with many ecological, economic, and socio-cultural functions. In Indonesia, the peat swamp forest ecosystems have been experiencing deforestation and degradation due to land clearing for plantations and agriculture and forest fires. In Central Kalimantan, especially in the ex-area of the 1 million hectares mega rice project (MRP)n in the 1990s, hydrological restoration is done by blocking the canals. We compared the three methods of canal blocking and the areas without canal blocking and the community’s preference on what form of canal blocking is more beneficial for them. Large canal blocking, medium canal blocking, and small canal blocking had positively affected the groundwater level in the driest month above the fire-prone critical point. In contrast, the locations without blocking exceed the necessary fire-prone water level. Small, large, and medium blocking are equally capable of optimizing the peat soil water table. However, the local communities preferred small blocking over other methods because it was simple, labour-intensive, and improved their livelihood when involved in its construction. The local communities choose the big canal blockings less because they block transportation access in and out of the peat swamp forest.

In Indonesia land use management of many areas has undergone significant changes due to a variety of human activities. The historical land use management at EMRP (Ex Mega Rice Project) area, Central Kalimantan, has been expanded for crops production in 1996/1997 and usage is divided into many classes. Mangrove as a potential carbon sink, having the largest amount of biomass found with in the Indo-Pacific area, was focused on as potential rehabilitated land to promote biomass restoration. As a result it has become a main topic of research. Several Lands at images taken in 1997, 2006 and 2010 were used and classified to monitor mangrove distribution using Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC), Spectral Angle Map per (SAM) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) methods, then comparisons were made. The land cover type includes, forest, mangrove forest, water, cloud, and other land use (bare land, settlement, bush shrub swamp, dry land agriculture, savanna, paddy field, and bush shrub). Result shows that SVM based on statistical and vector approach appears to be a superior method, with a high accuracy of 0.95±0.003. The smallest standard deviation of classification accuracy also showed that SVM is relatively more stable in mangrove forest mapping.

The article discusses the morality of sharing and how morality and values go hand in hand with certain forms of transfers among the Ngaju people in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. More precisely it examines interaction between a climate change mitigation project and the Ngaju Dayaks. Ngaju Dayaks living along the Kahayan River have practiced hunting, and gathering different forest products and shifting cultivation for centuries. Hunted game brought back to their community was shared with people nearby as well as some other forest products or rice harvest to the family or close kin. Ngaju also engaged in both market and non-market exchange. Earlier anthropological discussions on sharing treated sharing as a type of reciprocity, but more recently anthropologists have debated whether sharing is a transactional form in its own right or a part of reciprocal transactions. Sharing suggests and supports the values of autonomy and non-accumulation of wealth, while exchange creates dependencies and thus hierarchical relations. This article shows that sharing may acceptably turn into exchange in certain circumstances, which makes it a much more complicated and conflated concept than the idea of sharing as a completely separate transaction would suggest.

Canal blocking strategies for hydrological restoration of degraded tropical peatlands in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

The Unit Tamban is one of the tidal irrigation areas in the Central Kalimantan Mega Rice Project (MRP). The Unit Tamban is an irrigation system consisting of three primary canals with a settling pond or reservoir at each end. After being developed in 1970 by the Tidal Rice Field Development Project (P4S), the three reservoirs no longer function because they are full of sediment. Sedimentation also occurs in primary and secondary canals, impacting tidal attenuation and decreasing canal capacity. The reservoir at the end of the primary canal assists water regulation for irrigation purposes and leaching acid sulfate water. Three scenarios can be used to increase the capacity of the irrigation system, namely reservoir revitalization, secondary canals normalization, and combining two previous scenarios. The performance of both options was assessed by hydraulic simulation modeling using the HEC-RAS software. The hydraulic simulations show that reservoir revitalization can increase the volume of incoming water during high tide by about 90% more than without a reservoir. If the secondary canal normalization is carried out, the fresh water volume entering the secondary canal exceeds 19% before normalization.

Analysis of the most recent 10-year periods (2002 to 2011) of MODIS hotspots data (fires) and precipitation in Palangkaraya and Pontianak was carried out to identify seasonal and spatial fire occurrence in Kalimantan under El Nino conditions, and to asses future forest condition in Kalimantan. Most data was tallied every 10-day to analyze seasonal and spatial fire occurrence. Seasonal and spatial analysis results for severe fire years, namely 2006 and 2009, under El Nino conditions were as follows: the severest fire incidents for whole Kalimantan occurred in October in 2006 under the driest conditions in both Palangkaraya and Pontianak. The severest fires for the Mega Rice Project (MRP) area and its vicinity occurred in late September in 2009 under the driest conditions for Palangkaraya. Fire activities in the last 10-year in south Central Kalimantan were severe than other areas in Kalimantan. This may be explained by different dry conditions of peat. Namely, the peat in the southern part of Central Kalimantan could become dryer under the relatively longer dry season (about 3-month) compared with other areas (dry season in West Kalimantan is only 2/3-month). One of spatial analysis results clearly showed a so-called a fire belt shape arising from severe fires that occurred mainly on the southern coastal peatlands from West to Central Kalimantan in mid October in 2006.

This book aims to develop a framework for the assessment of population 'preferences in climate change mitigation policies by applying a Willingness to Pay (WTP) approach and presents the results from several case studies in Lithuania on renewable energy generation and renovation in different households. These analyses of climate change mitigation policies and measures, based on the assessment of their effectiveness, provide recommendations for developing innovative measures in other countries. Since public preferences are variable, climate change mitigation policies can change these preferences and allow to form new ones. Features: Analyses social benefits of climate change mitigation measures and their integration methods based on assessment of public preferences. Presents several practical case studies on energy needs where the Willingness to Pay framework was applied. Discusses climate change mitigation barriers in energy sector and the effectiveness of climate change mitigation policies to overcome them. Provides a novel approach for climate change mitigation policies development in households. Includes useful information for evaluating and planning policies related to renewable energy investment. This book is a useful reference for those in the academic, research, and business communities, policy makers, graduate students, and professionals involved with climate change mitigation projects.

Tropical peat swamp forest becomes degraded through forest removal and drainage, usually followed by land use change and fire. Restoration of the degraded peatland requires rewetting, which involves canal blocking and water level management. The purpose of canal blocking is to rewet the peat so that peat-forming trees can re-establish or crops be grown with minimal greenhouse gas emissions and peat subsidence. In addition, wet peat is more fire resistant than degraded dry peat. Canal construction faces several technical problems, including stress that causes bending, water seepage under the dam, and erosion of peat by water forcing its way around the sides when the water level upstream exceeds the dam height. This research examined the behaviour of water flows in canals in peatland in Central Kalimantan after blocking with dams of different designs. This study used a survey method and hydraulic physical model test with a horizontal scale of 1:30 and a vertical scale of 1:10. Field measurements were carried out on the primary canal of the former Mega Rice Project (MRP) Block C to build a physical model test prototype for laboratory research, includes measurement of cross-sections, canal length and water flow for a distance of 100 metres upstream and downstream of the construction. The test included three types of the physical model, reviewed for the effect of flow patterns caused by flood discharge frequencies of 5, 25, 50 and 100 years. The effects of flow patterns on canal dam construction in peatland were obtained from the physical model test.

The GEF's interventions in the climate change focal area: the contribution to strategies for climate change mitigation and sustainable development

Soil is an important carbon reservoir as it can store twice the amount that atmosphere does and three times the biomass, which makes it a key component for climate change (CC) mitigation projects. It is important to know the potential of soil organic carbon storage (SOC) in the main uses of the soli and their expected dynamics due to potential use changes. SOCS is estimated in 7 of the dominant land use systems in the area of the study, with 5 replicas as follows: 1) banana with shade (SAF+banana); 2) cocoa with shade (Ca+S); 3) citrus (C); 4) low silvopastoral system (SSPB); 5) high silvopastoral system (SSPA); 6) gallery forests (BG); and 7) bush forest (MM). SOC concentration was analyzed in samples composed of 25 soil sub-samples per plot, and the DA was estimated with the cylinder method in a simple per plot. All land uses studied can mitigate CC when storing SOC. BG was the system that showed the highest carbon storage. On the other hand, SAF+banana stored the least SOC (72,7 vs 33,4Mg/ha, respectively). Changes in land use can cause CO2 emissions or an addition in carbon fixation. Changes in land use that increase SOC allow CC mitigation, which makes them feasible for funding, thus allowing an improvement in the livelihood of local producers.