An excursion to the tropical lowland peats of S.E. Asia.
Buginese traders on the river Barito, South Kalimantan, Indonesia
Section of the coast of South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Basin areas in between rivers are (still) covered by dome peat under natural swamp forest. A narrow mangrove belt lines the shore. False colour photograph of the river Barito, South Kalimantan. Slightly elevated levees alongside the river are used for dwelling and food crop production; central basin areas are still under natural swamp forest. Effluent water from the raised peat formations that cover the mineral river basin is black with dissolved organic compounds. Initial gravity drainage of a peat dome. Vegetation is left standing to accelerate drying of the peat mass. Large scale attempts to “reclaim” deep peat formations by forced drainage have met with little success. Note the monotonous character of the climax swamp forest: one storey, few species and thin trees testify of the poor nutrient status of the raw wood peat. Drainage channels must be deepened several times to compensate subsidence of the land surface. Note how subsidence caused this ‘population rubber’ to lean. Drained and opened central peat dome area near Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Pitcher plants (Nepenthes sp.) testify of the low fertility status of deep central dome peats. The pitchers act as insect traps that furnish part of the plant’s need for nitrogen. Valuable timber is extracted; slash is burnt or left to decay Temporary storage of commercially valuable logs. Since pre-historic times, man has constructed corduroy roads to improve the trafficability of peat lands. Here is one corduroy road on the flat top of a small ombrogenous peat dome near Pontianak, West Kalimantan. Note the steep edge of the dome in the far distance. After initial drainage, the standing forest is cut and burnt. Settlers move in to clean the land and plant their first crop. Spontaneous settlers clear peat land by ‘controlled’ burning. In recent years, wildfires caused unprecedented devastation in peat areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Young peat reclamation area. Pioneer crops such as maize (Zea mays) and taro (Colocasia esculenta) benefit from (formerly cycling) plant nutrients that are still present in the surface peat. Government-sponsored “transmigration area” in the coastal region of West Kalimantan. A good yield of cassava (Manihot esculenta) in the second year after clearance of the forest vegetation. Peat reclamation by “spontaneous settlers” in Riau Province, Sumatra. Burning of surface peat and decaying wood provide barely enough plant nutrients to sustain a poor stand of banana (Musa cvs) and papaya (Carica papaya). Surface drainage in young peat land reclamation areas. Continual subsidence of the drained peat land makes it necessary to regularly deepen the hand-dug tertiary drainage ditches until the peat has sufficiently consolidated. After a few years of consolidation of the drained peat, tree crops are planted. These coconut trees (Cocos nucifera) were planted too soon and lean. The pineapple (Ananas comosus) in the foreground is a popular “pioneer crop” in young peat reclamation areas. This papaya plant (Carica papaya) on the land of a “spontaneous settler” found insufficient anchorage in the (still) loose peat; the plant toppled over when fruits started to grow. The inevitable fate of “population agriculture” on deep peat: after some 5 years of farming, nutrients have leached out of the surface peat and yields decrease sharply. Many settlers abandon their land and “open” another field elsewhere. Abandoned field near the edge of the original rain forest. A single banana plant and poor shrubs are all that remain of yet another failed attempt to use ombrogenous forest peat for low-input “population agriculture”. Years of toil result in a deeply drained near-stable peat mass. The natural fertility of the peat is lost because of continual leaching of the peat. The land is abandoned in the end. Commercial, high-input cultivation of garden beans on deeply drained dome peat near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Continual mineralization of the surface peat speaks against this profitable but destructive land use. Oil palm at Stapok Deep Peat Research Station near Kuching, Sarawak. Upright stand after 9 years of consolidation of deep ombrogenous forest peat. Plantation of pulpwood (here Acacia spp.) on deep ombrogenous peat in Riau Province, Sumatra. With careful management, pulpwood production conserves the peat and is far less destructive than production of food crops or - even worse - “population agriculture”.