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Grassroots approach to stopping fire and haze


Fires occur regularly in landscapes around the world, from rainforests to grasslands. But in 2019 – a year with only slightly less-than-usual rainfall – the burning of large swathes of the Amazon forest and Indonesia’s peatlands ignited a global sense of urgency.

By targeting both multi-level policies and grassroots action, CIFOR has been building consensus on the best ways to reduce the risk of peatland fires in Indonesia.

With support from the Temasek Foundation, CIFOR has studied ways to foster effective community-based fire prevention and peatland restoration. Focusing on Dompas village, in the province of Riau on the island of Sumatra, researchers use participatory action research – a way to create social transformation through a series of intensive facilitation events and actions – to support a gradual shift in local communities' behavior away from using fire to prepare land for farming.

In partnership with the University of Riau and local communities, CIFOR piloted an inexpensive, community-based monitoring system that applies the ‘3R restoration strategy’: re-wet; re-vegetate and re-vitalize livelihoods. Using a mobile app, residents measure groundwater and moisture levels in peatlands, and record efforts to plant trees and cash crops, and revitalize livelihoods by tracking and sharing data about pineapple and coconut harvests.

Dompas village is located outside the forest concessions, but another project located inside a forest concession aims to test a community-level business model in one of two test villages in Riau that use the Integrated Forestry and Farming System – a commitment by the Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Group to prevent fire and improve people’s livelihoods. The model aims to reduce the use of fire through partnerships between local communities and APP.

Through the five-year Measurable Action for Haze- Free Sustainable Land Management in Southeast Asia (MAHFSA) project, a joint initiative with the ASEAN Secretariat and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), CIFOR is working to develop evidence-based knowledge products to promote sustainable peatlands management and help reduce transboundary haze.

Participatory action research is a way to work together with people to foster change on the ground, and at the same time to produce robust science for social and economic transformation.

Herry Purnomo

CIFOR Scientist/IPB University Professor

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Project info


Project

Community-Based Fire Prevention and Peatland Restoration

Country

Indonesia

Funding partners

Temasek Foundation and Singapore Cooperative Enterprise

Project partners

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Australia, University of Riau (UNRI) and local communities

CIFOR focal point

Herry Purnomo, CIFOR Scientist

Project

A Participatory Action Research to Community-Based Business Model (CBBM) Development in Selected Integrated Forest and Farming System (IFFS/DMPA) Villages

Country

Indonesia

Funding partners

Asia Pulp & Paper

CIFOR focal point

Herry Purnomo, CIFOR Scientist

Project

Measurable Action for Haze-Free Sustainable Land Management in Southeast Asia (MAHFSA)

Country

Southeast Asia

Funding partners

ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC), International Fund for Agricultural Department (IFAD), and the Global Environment Centre (GEC), working in close cooperation with the ASEAN Member States (AMS)

CIFOR focal point

Michael Brady, CIFOR Scientist

Forests in a
time of crises

CIFOR ANNUAL REPORT 2019

In 2019, the world witnessed some of our greatest challenges shift gears from urgent to emergency – from climate crisis to landscape degradation to the wildfires that devastated ecosystems across several continents. But it also saw momentum build with the announcement of the UN Decade of Ecological Restoration, a focus on nature-based solutions, and the recognition of local forest communities and Indigenous Peoples are the best land managers for forest conservation.

Another exciting development – the merger of CIFOR and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) – set the stage for more evidence and solutions that will improve people’s lives, help to conserve and restore the ecosystems that support people and nature, and respond to the global climate crisis.

Our scientists advanced critical knowledge on forest landscape restoration, wild foods and timber legality in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and peatland fires, biofuel, oil palm and wetland ‘blue carbon’ in Indonesia – with clear policy impacts in Southeast Asia from 10 years of social forestry research and engagement. Our ongoing Global Comparative Studies – GCS REDD+ and GCS Tenure – continued to bring science to policy makers across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Gender researchers looked deep into a myriad of topics, and we mourned the loss of principal scientist and Nairobi hub leader Esther Mwangi, whose legacy of achievements in gender and land rights won’t be soon forgotten. Finally the Global Landscapes Forum brought even more people together, both at events from Accra to Luxembourg as well as through exciting new digital innovations.