“It’s Like the Landscape is Coming Back to Life”: Stories of Hope and Restoration in West Kalimantan
07 Oct 2024 - Stories From the Field
When Jaspriandi was a small boy, growing up in the Ketapang District of West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), his village was surrounded by forest. He remembers being able to read subtle changes in the environment and predict exactly when the rains would arrive. “Down to the month”, he says, “or sometimes even to the day.” But as the years went by, the world around him began to change.
First, the trees were cleared away. Then, to move the timber, a network of canals was carved into the peatland soils, draining them of their moisture and leaving them vulnerable to fire. “These canals were created without considering the consequences for our community,” says Jaspriandi. “As a native to this region, I have seen many fires.”
In addition to fires, the landscape is increasingly under threat from unlicensed gold mining, poaching, illegal logging and land clearance by communities, to make room for palm oil plantations. As an especially biodiverse area, and one in which peat soils store huge amounts of carbon, restoration and protection are vitally important.
Now 40 years old, Jaspriandi works as the Regional Management Coordinator of the local Village Forest Management Institution (LPHD); a newly formed community organisation tasked with managing the forest, restoring peatlands and developing sustainable livelihoods through Social Forestry Business Groups (KUPS). With guidance from Tropenbos Indonesia and funding from the Rimba Collective, these groups are beginning to repair the damage and restore ecosystems to their former health.
A Community-based Forest Management Approach
Covering more than 8,000 hectares (an area that’s equivalent to all the parks in Washington D.C.), the Tropenbos Ketapang Project focuses on four villages that have obtained legal forest management rights (HPHD) from Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK). Each is located within the Pawan Pesaguan Landscape; a complex forest ecosystem, home to 50,000 ha of peatlands. Three of the four villages are especially rich in biodiversity and sit atop peatlands 3–13 metres deep.
The Rimba Collective is working with Tropenbos in each of these high conservation value (HCV) areas to preserve the remaining forest and restore degraded areas through a community-based forest management approach. This includes fire prevention, in the form of canal blocking and agroforestry development; and restoration, through nurseries, replanting and forest patrols.
Key to this approach is improving the management of village forests (hutan desa) in collaboration with the LPHD, which until recently have lacked the capacity and funding needed to manage forests effectively and have relied heavily on limited government support.
Preventing Fires, Protecting Peat
“No matter what happens, we have to protect the forest,” says Muhammad Izwar, head of LPHD Rawa Gambut. Just 2 months prior, in June 2024, a land clearance fire got out of control and quickly raged for 34 ha along dried canal banks in Kebace; an area of farmland just outside Sungai Besar, on the fringes of the village forest.
Over two days and nights, the LPHD worked tirelessly to extinguish the fires and limit the damage. “It was incredibly hot,” recalls Izwar, who adds it was dangerous, difficult work, but believes “it was our responsibility to take action.” In neighbouring Sungai Pelang Village, similar incidents happened in 2012, 2015 and 2019.
The scars left behind by these fires are still clearly visible in the landscape, but so too are the preventive measures being implemented by Tropenbos and the LPHD. Canal blocking has helped inundate the landscape, preventing the peat soils from drying out and making them less vulnerable to fire. This has also benefited local biodiversity. As Jaspriandi explains, “animals find it easier to access drinking water and, in places where fires burnt away plants, we can see them growing back – it’s like the landscape is coming back to life.”
In Sungai Pelang, one dam was completed by Tropenbos and the LPHD in December 2023, and four more are in the planning stage at other strategic locations along the canal network. Recent surveys have reported high animal and plant biodiversity in these areas, including orangutan, bears, clouded leopards, proboscis monkeys, deer, tarsier and various birds.
“If We Continue Planting Trees, the Animals Will Return”
To support social forestry and rehabilitate degraded lands, Tropenbos has built two nurseries in Sungai Besar and Pematang Gadung. Here, native tree species are nurtured from seed to sapling over a period of around 7 months, then planted by LPHD patrol teams in and around the village forest. In a year, these nurseries collectively produce around 70,000 seedlings. Over the next 10 years, Tropenbos has set a target of 531,147 trees planted in the surrounding landscape.
Each of the 14 local women working in these nurseries has a different reason for joining. For some, it’s a chance to learn new skills and bring in a little extra household income; for others, it’s an excuse to get out of the house and make new friends. For Ibu Rumianti (Rumi), contributing to reforestation is both a source of pride and a way to overcome past trauma.
More than 20 years ago, she was working in a forest camp not far from here, when a massive fire engulfed the area. She recalls seeing the lifeless bodies of an orangutan mother and its baby, alongside the blackened remains of other creatures that couldn’t escape the flames. “It broke my heart to see them like that,” she says, tears rolling down her face, “and to see a forest that was once green suddenly so bare and barren.” This memory is her motivation to work each day. “We don’t do it for money,” she says. “We work here because we want to see the forest go back to how it used to be. We hope that if we continue planting trees, the animals will return.”
Crossing the Divide – From Exploitation to Protection
Around 3 hours’ drive from Bu Rumi’s nursery, in the hills surrounding Pangkalan Telok Village, the line between farmland and village forest is sometimes little more than a dirt track, just wide enough for a motorcycle. This proximity reveals a stark contrast between the two landscapes, and also their interconnectedness; while fires from community farms can easily spread into the forest, the benefits of a healthy forest could potentially ignite positive changes in communities via the hutan desa model.
The LPHD team in Pangkalan Telok is evidence of this process in action. It includes former farmers, loggers and poachers, one of whom is Riduansya, who used to hunt deer in this forest. Now, his tracking skills are put to use monitoring local biodiversity. “Since being recruited by the LPHD, I have realised just how endangered many of these amazing creatures have become,” he says. By studying hornbills, he learned how animals play important roles in their ecosystem and contribute to reforestation through seed dispersal. “That’s what convinced me to stop hunting,” he says. “To the point where I actively stop others from doing it now.”
To restore the forest, cooperation with neighbouring farms will be key. Another member of the LPHD patrol team, Supardi, used to be a farmer. He believes raising awareness and building long-term partnerships is essential to progress. “This will be a long process, but the most important thing is we all love the forest and allow it to breathe,” he says. “Only by working together can we stem the tide of destruction.”
“There May Be Changes Yet to Come”
Working with local communities and LPHD, social forestry programmes from Tropenbos Indonesia are beginning to reverse the damage done to Ketapang District, restoring peatlands to their natural state, improving agricultural practices, developing alternative livelihoods and reforesting degraded lands. Though it’s still early days, positive impacts are already beginning to appear.
In Sungai Pelang, blocking the canals means water from upstream no longer drains away, but instead goes back into the landscape and inundates the rich peatland soils. In Sungai Besar and Pematang Gadung, nurseries built by Tropenbos have provided a social hub for women workers, a source of income for local families, a repository of knowledge for reforestation efforts and a touch of respite for the forest itself; while the expected annual deforestation rate in these areas is 2.8% (according to the CCB baseline report), the actual deforestation rate here in 2023 was just 0.2%.
Moreover, the networks created by Tropenbos and strengthened by funding from the Rimba Collective have also begun to impact attitudes and alter expectations. “There may be some changes yet to come,” says Jaspriandi, “but for now, we have seen improvements and are beginning to read the environment like we used to.”
Clouds are gathering in the skies above Sungai Pelang. Before heading home, Jaspriandi scans the landscape one last time and takes a moment to think. Then, with a smile, he says:
“It looks like rain.”
