Climate Change Mitigation Through Forest Fire Prevention and Peatland Rewetting Programs in Central Kalimantan Indonesia

Peat forest plays a principal role in climate change mitigation in Indonesia. Considering the potential releases of GHGs from a forest fire and degraded peatland, it is important to conserve peatland forests. Besides being essential for ecological balancing, the role of peatland forest expands to the economic and social aspects. The purpose of this research was to calculate CO2 emissions that can be avoided by the community-based fire prevention and rewetting program. This research utilized spatial analysis to calculated avoided CO2 emissions in six villages in Central Kalimantan. Data and information for the calculation were generated from field observations, interviews, and desk study. Spatial analysis using Arc GIS 10.5 was applied to compute the incombustible areas. The result from the analysis found that fire prevention and rewetting programs managed to prevent approximately 1 million Mg C or equivalent to 3.7 million CO2. The program managed to prevent emission from the vulnerable area including swamp shrubs, plantations and dry land agriculture. The finding of this study suggests that community-based fire prevention and peatland rewetting programs could become a strategic program in climate change mitigation in Indonesia.


INTRODUCTION
Global communities demonstrate rising concern toward increasing Green House Gases (GHGs) emission that causes catastrophic effects including climate change, disturbing ecosystem balance, and even threaten human existence. Considering the disastrous impacts of GHGs, Indonesia's government participated in mitigate of climate change that manifested in act No. 16 2016. This policy furthermore translated into more technical strategies by enacted Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that contain the Indonesian target of emission reduction as big as 29% for Business as Usual (BAU) scenario and 41% with International contributions. Emission reduction in Indonesia is focusing on land use and land-use change sector as these two sectors are the main emission contributors. More specifically, GHGs emissions in Indonesia are sourced from timber extraction, deforestation for the expansion of agriculture and plantation, and forest fire (MoEF, 2015).
Peat forest plays a principal role in climate change mitigation in Indonesia (Hatano, 2019). Indonesia covers a significant amount of world peatland, approximately 47% of the total global tropical peatland. Thus Peatland becomes an important carbon pool. Peatland in Indonesia is generally formed in lowland areas where usually flooded and has poor drainage (Dommain et al., 2014). In natural conditions and undisturbed where the ecological condition functioning well, peat forest is capable to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store in the form of plant biomass, litter, and peat (Loisel et al., 2014;Yu, 2011 One of the areas in Indonesia that are prone to forest fire is Mantangai Sub-District, Kapuas District, Central Kalimantan. The majority of peatland in this area is degraded due to Mega Rice Project (MRP) started in 1995 (Anon, 1995). The MRP project aims to create a large-scale paddy field by clearing the forest and creating drainage canals. As a result, peatland in this area was highly degraded and burn repeatedly in the dry season Considering the amount of C stock and potential releases of GHGs, it is important to conserve peatland forests. Besides being essential for ecological balancing, the role of peatland forest expands to the economic and social aspects. Peatland generates numerous ecosystem services including providing habitat for numerous endemic animals, supply various products both timber and non-timber forest product as well (Cheyne and Macdonald 2011; Posa et al., 2011;Nowak, 2013).
Forest fire prevention and climate mitigation of tropical peatland have gained global concern as large CO 2 emissions can be avoided or reduce (Murdiyarso et al., 2010). Furthermore, peatland rehabilitation could bring multiple co-benefits including habitat conservation, maintenance of ecosystem services, and support local community's livelihood. Multiple benefits of peatland conservation provide an incentive to manage and restore peatland (Page et al., 2009).
Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF) is one of the conservation projects conducted in Mantangai Sub-Regency. Receiving fund support from the United Kingdom Climate Change Unit (UKCCU), ICCTF aim to reduce GHGs emission through management of forest and peatland. This program applies the 3R principle namely Rewetting, Revegetation, and Revitalization. Rewetting focuses on rehabilitate hydrological conditions through canal blocking and backfilling. Meanwhile, the revegetation was conducted by planting trees on degraded peatland. Revitalization is intended to improve the economy and prosperity of local communities by providing sustainable livelihood. Besides that fire prevention is also an important part of this project.
Assessment of avoiding GHGs emissions resulted from community-base fire prevention and rewetting program is a necessary step as part to measure project performance. By measuring the emission that can be avoided, the contribution of the ICCTF program to national targets can be determined. The information from the assessment also can be used to develop a further strategy in peatland conservation.
The objective of this research was to measure CO 2 emission that can be mitigated by the community-based fire prevention and rewetting program. Information from this program also can be seen as an effective indicator of the program in restoring hydrological conditions and managing forest fire.

METODOLOGY
This research was carried in six villages in Mantangai sub-distric, Kapuas Distric Central Kalimantan Indonesia. Those six villages namely Kalumpang, Mantangai Hulu, Mantangai Tengah, Mantangai Hilir, Pulau Kaladan dan Lamunti. The six villages were chosen because the ICCTF program was conducted in that villages. Besides that, the peatland area in those villages has degraded massively. This research was conducted for three months from January -March 2019. The activities encompassed preparation, data collection, analysis and reporting.
This study used primary data and secondary data. Primary data were obtained from field observations and interviews with the community in six villages. Observation intended to check the condition of land cover in some selected points. Meanwhile, interviews were applied to obtain information about the ICCTF program and forest fire in their area. Secondary data included land cover data of 2017 issued by the Directorate of Inventory and Monitoring of Forest Resources, KLHK. Maps of the burn area of 2019 were obtained from sentinel images recorded on October 23, 2019, as well as the coordinates of deep wells obtained from P2KLH (Forest Fire Prevention And Land Rehabilitation Palangka Raya University).
The analysis in this study included spatial analysis, intersect process, and attribute data processing. There are four main stages in this analysis. namely the analysis of the distribution of deep well canal blocking, field observations, interviews, spatial analysis, and calculation the emissions that can be avoided.
The analysis of the distribution of deep wells, canal blocking, backfilling and surveillance tower aims to determine the GPS location. In this way, the extent of the area covered by the program can be determined. The information on the distribution of GPS location will then be used as a basis for field checks and interviews. Of all the deep wells and canal blocking that have been built, 18 points were selected to be checked in the field, 3 points for each village. Some considerations for selecting observation samples are (1) characteristics of different environmental conditions, (2) has access either by land or by river/drainage channel. Some parameters observed were the type of vegetation around the deep well and canal blocking, the condition of the canal blocking/deep well, the presence or absence of water in the drainage canal.
Once all the information was obtained, then a spatial analysis was carried out using Arc GIS 10.5 software to determine the distribution of deep wells and canal blocking. In detail, the analysis step was as follow:

RESULT Study site description
The six villages where the ICCTF project was implemented are located in the former PLG area, an agricultural land development project in the year of peat covering an area of one million hectares. Interviews with the community revealed that the PLG Project caused this area to degrade and burned frequently. To develop the rice production area, the first forest in this area is cleared and then drainage canals were built as part of the irrigation system. However, this project failed and left the peat area open and drained. As consequence, this area became prone to fire and emit significant amounts of CO 2 . Degraded peat ecosystem also impacted local community livelihood. For example, fish stock decrease rapidly and nontimber forest product (NTFP) become hard to find.
The population in the study area is dominated by the Ngaju Dayak tribe, the rest are from the Banjar and Javanese tribes. To meet their daily needs, most of the community manages rubber plantations, farms, manages rattan gardens, fishing, and collecting non-timber forest products.
Only a small part of the community works in the service sector such as manage grocery stalls and artisans.
The interview also revealed that the community has suffered a lot of losses from repeated fires. Almost in every long dry season fires occur. Many rubber plantations, fields, and community rubber plantations were burned, in addition, health, economic and educational activities were disrupted due to the thick smoke that surrounded the village for months.

Community-base fire prevention and peatland rewetting programs
Community-based pograms funded by ICCTF was focusing on restoring the hydrological condition of peatlands as well as preventing and controlling forest fires. The hydrology of peatlands was restored by blocking canals and backfilling. Blocking canals was established to reduce the rate of water from peatlands and to keep peatlands flooded which could maintain the function of peatland. Efforts to prevent and control fires were carried out by constructing deep wells and surveillance towers. Construction of deep wells was expected to be a source of water for fire fighting. It is estimated that one deep well can prevent fires of 4-8 Ha. The determination of the deep well point was carried out through a deliberation process by the community, P2KLH and village officials. Deep wells are built in locations where fires usually occur and also at vulnerable points where fires from outside the village are usually spread to the village area. In addition to these considerations, the village community also pays attention to access to the points where the deep wells will be built. To optimize the utilization, deep wells must be placed in areas that are accessible to the public either by road or by water. In each village, 50 deep wells were built so that a total of 300 deep wells were built.
Canal blocking is one of Rewetting's priority activities to restore the ecological function of peatlands. Canal blocking is made on drainage canals that are no longer used by the community. A total of 33 canal blocks have been constructed in five villages, namely Kalumpang, Mantangai Hulu, Mantangai Tengah, Mantangai Hilir and Kaladan Island.
The fire surveillance tower was built as part of the early warning of forest and land fires. With the existence of this surveillance tower, the fires that occur in the surrounding village area can be quickly identified. The program built two surveillance towers located in Mantangai Hilir and Mantangai Hulu village.
All the programs were established by put forward participation approach. Local communities actively involve in every step of the programs start from planning, implementing and until monitoring. As community based program it is essential to make the community as the main actor. This approach was selected because local community possessed the knowledge regarding the forest fire including areas that are vulnerable to forest fire, the obstacle in combating forest fire and the loss that they have to face.

Land cover
Based on the 2017 land cover map, the study area is covered by ten types of land cover, namely: secondary swamp forest, open land, plantations, dryland agriculture, dry mixed bush agriculture, swamps, rice fields, shrubs, swamp shrubs, and water bodies.
The dominant land cover types in the study area are swamp shrubs and plantations. Swamp shrubs are mostly formed through natural succession on the burned area. Based on field observations, the dominant vegetation in the scrub is kelakai (Stenochlaena palutris), fern (Diplazium  ), karamunting (Melastoma malabathricum), rasau (Pandanus helicopus), gerungang (Cratoxylon arborescens) and galam (Melaleuca leucadendra). These plants are pioneer species that can grow well on peatlands. During the long dry season, peat, grass, and shrubs become very dry and become abundant fuel for forest and land fires.
Based on the main commodity, there were four types of plantations, namely rubber plantations, oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) plantations, sengon (Albazia falcataria) plantations and mixed fruit gardens. The plantations managed by the local communities are typically small-scale, and located near the settlement. People's plantations are mostly managed in a traditional way, using a mixed cropping pattern, low input, and using traditional tools. Traditional communities have been managing rubber plantations and for centuries as their main income. On contrary, plantations managed by companies are usually at a large scale, employed monoculture systems and palm oil as the main commodity.
Dryland agriculture is usually land managed by the community to grow rice, vegetables, and fruits. This type of farming uses traditional methods. Forest land is usually cleared by felling and clearing, following by burning the wood and shrub and after three to four weeks the seed of paddy or vegetables could be planted. After two or three rotations (2-3 years) of dryland farming is no longer productive and then farmers started planting it with rubber, fruit, and rattan.
Details of the type of land cover in Block A can be seen in the following picture

Avoided CO 2 emissions
By connecting all GPS points of deep wells and canal blocking, the ICCTF program area can be computed. The total area covered by the ICCTF program is 40,099 Ha which comprises six villages in the Mantangai District. Analysis of the 2019 forest and land fire map showed that 18% (7,381 ha) of the total area was burned. Meanwhile, the incombustible area was 32,178 ha or 82%. By overlaying the burned area with the land cover map, we can expose that previously the burned area was mostly shrub, dryland agriculture, and plantations. In detail, previous land covers of burned area are plantation area 1554 ha, open land 5 ha, secondary swamp forest 2 ha, swamp scrub 3622 Ha, and dryland agriculture 2198 Ha.
Swamp shrubs and peatlands during the dry season become dry and prone to fire, so this type of land cover becomes very vulnerable. The second-largest proportion of areas that burned was dry land agriculture with 30% and plantations with 21%. Productive land becomes an area that is prone to be burn because fire is often used as a tool to clear land. This method is considered to be the easiest, cheapest, and most effective way. This finding is in accordance with the research of Van Butsic, Kelly M and Moritz MA (2015) and Taconi (2003) that found that forest and land fires often occur in forested areas, shrubs and grasslands as well as plantation areas. Furthermore, peat areas are areas that can experience repeated fires.
It is assumed that the incombustible area is the result of the prevention and mitigation efforts carried out by the program. This incombustible area then becomes the basis for calculating the amount of CO 2 emissions that can be prevented. Based on spatial analysis, the total unburnt area was 32,718 Ha which was divided into seven land cover categories, namely plantations, settlements, open lands, bodies of water, secondary swamp forests, swamp shrub, and dryland agriculture. The categorization of the unburnt area into land cover types is intended to determine the appropriate carbon stock.
Calculation of the total carbon stock in all types of land cover shows that the carbon stock in the incombustible area is approximately 1 million Mg C. This amount is equivalent to 3.7 million Mg CO 2 e emissions that could be prevented.
Shrubs area is the most vulnerable area to forest fire. However, the incombustible shrubs in 2019 relatively high. Of the total 18426 ha shrub area in study area, only 18.26 % burnt during the 2019 forest fire and the rest (80.34%) could save from the forest fire. This data indicate that the deep wells and canal blocking are effective to prevent and suppress forest fire. For plantation areas, 9317 ha had saved from the fire disaster.

CONCLUSIONS
This study found that peatland rewetting and forest fire prevention program could prevent 3.7 million Mg CO 2e from the 2019 forest fire event. This finding indicates that community based peatland rehabilitation program contribute significantly to climate change mitigation in  Indonesia. One of the biggest obstacles to controlling fires on peatlands is the lack of operational fund of community fire brigade. The fund is required to fund transportation cost, fuel for the pomp machine and deep well maintaining cost. Thus fire community bridge needs to find a financing scheme, either in the form of a productive business that can be managed by them or financing from other schemes. Most of the burned areas are degraded areas in the form of swamp scrub, open areas, dry land agriculture and plantations. Rewetting efforts need to be followed by efforts to restore vegetation in areas prone to fire.