Not far from Singapore, close to 200 volunteer firefighters are now on board to further reduce fire risk.
This time last year, I made a call to our former peatland manager based in Riau to get a clearer insight of the fires that choked up the region.
Even with choppy wifi, I could still make out the unmistakable coughs that punctuated our conversation.
One of our worst fears had come true: The capital city of Pekanbaru (where our field office is located) had reached PSI 429, a number considered to be extremely hazardous. In the same weekend, I received multiple video clips depicting blood-red skies that seem way too familiar with the fires raging across most of the American West right now.
But in the apocalyptic chaos, there were glimmers of hope.
Last September, I also reported on the 10 villages in Bengkalis, Riau that escaped the peatland fires thanks to well-trained and equipped local volunteers.
This year, we are extending our areas of work to help more vulnerable communities in four other fire-prone villages named Sukajadi, Temiang, Sepahat and Api-Api.
Bringing the total area of intervention to 14 villages, 47 new volunteer firefighters have joined the work to reduce fire risk across three sub-districts in Bengkalis, Riau.
These critical locations remain volatile fire hotspots because they are peatland areas. As peatlands store a massive amount of carbon, these areas are strategic for climate change mitigation.
By collecting data to estimate the size of carbon pool and the amount of carbon emissions from degraded storage in the peatlands while working together with local communities to prevent peatland fires, this brings us a significant step closer to our goal: developing a collaborative management model to reduce carbon emissions and increase community resilience to fires in Bengkalis.
REDUCING FIRE RISK WITH MORE COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
In 2019, almost one million Indonesians suffered from respiratory problems caused by smoke from forest and peatland fires, according to studies reported by Mongabay and SCMP.
Thankfully this year, a La Niña event (which means above-average rainfall) has officially been declared in our region.
Fires also accelerate the effects of climate change by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and reducing the forests’ carbon sequestration capabilities.
One thing’s for sure: more rain this year only provides temporary relief to a chronic pain that has existed for more than 40 years.
“The annual burning season in Indonesia, which usually lasts for several months, has left over a million people with a history of respiratory ailments, putting them at greater risk of suffering more acutely from COVID-19,” Budi Haryanto, a researcher on climate and environmental health at University of Indonesia said in the ‘Fires, Forests and the Future’ report.
Today, more than 4,000 people have been infected with COVID-19 in Riau and the numbers are still increasing.
The hazardous levels of thick smoke from forest fires threaten to exacerbate respiratory illness from COVID-19.
The Indonesian government’s Peatland Restoration Agency has also said that the distancing measures have halted the construction of infrastructure to rewet drained peat areas, impacting efforts to prevent fires.
The good news is that the local communities’ response and emergency preparedness remain an all-time high.
“We applied a strict protocol while conducting activities such as the canal blocking construction training last week. We limited the number of participants, kept our distance, and wore our masks,” WWF-Indonesia’s Peatland Manager Nurchalis Fadhli explained.
The pandemic may have delayed fire mitigation projects, but it has only spurred the local community volunteers on to prevent fire incidents in their respective villages.
One of the newest female volunteer firefighters includes 21-year-old Sarafina who joined the team as she was tired of the yearly fires and wanted to have more control over the safety of her family and village.
“If I don’t protect my village, who will?” Sarafina added.
Note: This picture was taken prior to the pandemic.
As a result of intensive monitoring and rewetting of peatlands in four fire-prone villages at Sukajadi, Temiang, Sepahat, and Api-Api, no large-scale fire incidence was reported in August 2020.
To prevent peatland fires, we are building five new canal-blocking structures to increase retained water in the surrounding areas to optimally rewet the peatland.
FIRE MITIGATION REQUIRES COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS
There were initial plans to establish a plantation in the area, but it fell through, leaving the land degraded and abandoned.
When this happened, WWF worked with the local village government to secure the land for rehabilitation and restoration work.
The permission to plant 30 hectares of commercial crops in the area was soon granted, and we were happy to support the communities in the replanting efforts.
This is encouraging news as the communities from six villages (Tenggayun, Temiang, Api-api, Sepahat, Tanjung Leban, and Buruk Bakul) would be able to reap from the harvest.
Last year, WWF helped replant 15 hectares of the landscape with plants that would grow well on peatland. These include non-timber products like rubber and coffee (aka peatland coffee) and seedless guava.
When you combine a rehabilitated area with beaming communities, you get the best of both worlds.
The positive responses from local communities have led to increased support and commitment to fire reduction and peat management-related activities too.
At the same time, the communities are now more receptive to WWF’s activities as they are aware that our work also supports other governmental agencies like the Badan Restorasi Gambut (BRG), the forestry department, local police, and army.
LET’S STOP FIGHTING FIRES
At a difficult time where the rest of the world is recovering from a pandemic, it’s no surprise that the current context is drawing focus and resources away from preventive efforts.
As WWF designs an active prevention strategy to train, equip and empower the local communities at 14 villages in Bengkalis to manage forests sustainably, fire mitigation requires continued support and active commitment from the government, stakeholders, and villagers.
More could be invested into tackling the root causes of fires — and the local communities play a huge role in reducing the fire occurrences and rehabilitation of degraded peatland.
In the long term, businesses with plantations on peatland areas need to be more responsible about peatland rehabilitation in the area to reduce the likelihood of forest fires and reverse the damage.
In short, reactive measures to fight the fires are not enough. As with COVID-19, the signs were always there. We had many opportunities to mitigate the risk of the outbreak. But we looked past it.
Even as we now see a world focused on chasing after a vaccine to cure the coronavirus, perhaps it is time to remember the chances we could have taken to prevent the unimaginable.
If you like reading this, see more about the low down on Singapore’s amped-up climate targets, watching the world burn is the new normal, and the smarter way to reboot economies in Asia.
