Grant Amount: $10,000
Project Leader: Dr Charles CC Lee
Peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial carbon store, which sequesters 0.37 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide CO2 a year. Damaged peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, annually releasing almost 6% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Peatland restoration is therefore crucial in emissions reductions, thereby mitigating climate change impacts. In the Sungai Tohor area in Riau province, Indonesia, its rich peatland is drained to support monoculture plantations (pulpwood) leading to massive fires, land subsidence, and flooding. The village communities would not be able to survive in the long term without a healthy peatland ecosystem.
In September 2019, a local Singaporean non-profit organisation, People’s Movement to Stop Haze (PM Haze), which has a significant relationship (4 years) with the village community, initiated a pilot peatland restoration (PPR) project in Sungai Tohor. Leveraging on the close relationship between Dr Charles Lee and PM Haze, UONS has an unprecedented opportunity to provide strong scientific support at the university level to PM Haze for the PPR project. The main objective is to restore the damaged Sungai Tohor peatland. In the initial phase, the project will be conducted over an experimental area consisting of 3 hectares, which is 30% burnt, and 70% partly degraded land. The key restoration initiatives will involve: (a) peatland vegetation replanting; and (b) rewetting of peatland. Our results will yield new findings in: (a) specific revegetation methods; and (b) imparting a renewed life to the villages from the restored peatlands. The methods can be designed as a best practice ecological restoration of peatlands handbook, which can be implemented across similar ecosystems in Indonesia and ASEAN countries.
