Abstract
Ecological restoration is considered to play an important role in mitigating climate change, protecting biodiversity, and preventing environmental degradation. Yet, there are often multiple perspectives on what outcomes restoration should be aiming to achieve, and how we should get to that point. In this study we interview a range of policymakers, academics, and non‐governmental organization (NGO) representatives to explore the range of perspectives on the restoration of Indonesia's tropical peatlands—key global ecosystems that have undergone large‐scale degradation. Thematic analysis suggests that participants agreed about the importance of restoration, but had differing opinions on how effective restoration activities to date have been and what a restored peatland landscape should look like. These results exemplify how ecological restoration can mean different things to different people, but also highlight important areas of consensus for moving forward with peatland restoration strategies.
Highlights
The United Nations (UN) declared 2021–2030 the decade of ecosystem restoration, aiming to “scale up the restoration ofJuly 2020 Restoration Ecology Vol 28, No 4, pp. 817–827 degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight climate change, and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity” (UN Environment Programme 2019)
Most (22/25) respondents emphasized the benefits of restoration for reducing fire risks. This was justified as important both for local reasons, including health issues due to haze, and international reasons relating to reducing global carbon emissions: “It was shocking to us in 2015 where there was a lot of haze: people, kids could not go to school, traffic stranded and many more bad stories on that” (NGO 8); “Given the scale of the carbon emissions from South East Asian peatlands, anything that we can do to reduce emissions, if we can do that at scale, is going to make quite a difference to Indonesia, in particular to their carbon emissions and to global emissions” (Researcher 3)
We found that respondents had somewhat differing opinions on what a restored peatland landscape might look like
Summary
The United Nations (UN) declared 2021–2030 the decade of ecosystem restoration, aiming to “scale up the restoration ofJuly 2020 Restoration Ecology Vol 28, No 4, pp. 817–827 degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight climate change, and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity” (UN Environment Programme 2019). 817–827 degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight climate change, and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity” (UN Environment Programme 2019). This sits alongside recent reports which underscore that avoiding, reducing, and reversing land degradation is essential for meeting the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 (Cowie et al 2018; IPBES 2018; IPCC 2019). Restoration goals are dependent on historical information regarding the ecosystem before human disturbance, but often this is unavailable or limited (Higgs et al 2014). Restoration goals are shaped by the interaction of historical information, current conditions, and other practical considerations (Higgs et al 2014). Few studies assess whose values and histories are prioritized
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