Water-based economy key to saving Indonesia’s peatlands: BRG

CIFOR scientist Herry Purnomo, who is also a professor at the Bogor Agricultural University, said that economies of scale also applied to local communities, which had contributed significantly to restoring about 30 percent of the BRG's restoration priority areas outside concessions.

"The companies and communities both have their share of responsibility," Herry said during the discussion on Thursday, emphasizing that restoring peatlands and preventing forest fires required "all concerned parties" to work together and "help each other".

Moving local communities away from the slash-and-burn method of clearing land would require large resources that they could not provide on their own, Herry said, and that this presented an opportunity for the private sector.