Peatland Operations
The majority of APRIL Indonesia’s fibre plantations in Riau, Indonesia, are located on tropical peatlands.
APRIL has embraced the fact that our continued right to operate on sensitive peatlands must be based on APRIL achieving better long-term environmental outcomes in those areas than would otherwise occur in our absence.
Through our science-based land management practices, we are part of the integrated solution required in the protection of high conservation value areas of forest and improvement of peatland water levels that minimise emissions of carbon.
Peat forms when the accumulation of vegetative matter is inhibited from decaying, especially in swampy conditions, over thousands of years. Undisturbed, peat may accumulate from 0.6 cm to 1.3 cm per year, is important for water storage and constitutes a large and highly concentrated carbon pool.
Peat degradation results from deforestation, drainage and fire. To manage a peatland fibre plantation responsibly, carbon emissions and fire must be mitigated by maintaining water at high levels near the peat surface. Plantations must also be established in such a way as to protect designated HCVF areas and reduce human encroachment and illegal logging.
In 2007, APRIL began a three-year Science-Based Management Support Project (SBMSP) to enhance the understanding of hydrology, ecology and other parameters for responsible management of peatlands. This project was conducted in collaboration with experts from Deltares, CarboPEAT, ProForest, and the universities of Leicester (UK), Wageningen (Netherlands) and Helsinki (Finland). It led APRIL to scientifically understand how to:
- Conserve lowland natural forest within fibre plantation development areas
- Maintain the hydrological function of the landscape
- Minimise CO2 emissions from peatlands
- Maintain long-term productivity in fibre plantations
Establishing plantations on peatlands must be planned and managed at the landscape level, leaving central peat domes and river basins intact and buffering them against drainage impacts. APRIL Indonesia is now using “hydro-buffers” between its fibre plantations and conservation areas. The buffer zones and the efficient placement of water control structures in company plantations maintain and improve water levels which minimises peat subsidence, fire and carbon emissions.
Prior to 2007, average water levels on peatlands where APRIL has now established its plantations were more than 120 cm below the peat surface. Today, improved water management by APRIL has seen the levels rise to between 40 cm to 90 cm below the peat surface. By integrating natural forest “hydro-buffers” into landscape planning, water in the conservation forest areas is now managed to follow the natural seasonal changes that occur in the tropics.
Effective water management reduces the rate of peat subsidence, reduces peat degradation which translates to low carbon emissions, and improves the productivity and longevity of the fibre plantations while ensuring continued viability and protection of substantial natural forest conservation areas.
APRIL Indonesia is actively monitoring carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from its peatland concessions as part of a broader effort to understand the company’s carbon footprint. Emerging expertise and key results in this new field of research are shared with other leading research institutions. In 2010, APRIL Indonesia hosted visiting scientists from University of Tokyo and Hokkaido University for technical exchange on the monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from peat soils. Since 2008, Hokkaido University has been monitoring GHG emissions in the company’s acacia fibre plantation as well as other land use types. They report that water table depth is a main factor controlling GHG emissions, and that acacia fibre plantation emits less GHG than cropland.
APRIL’s commitment to responsible peatland management and to supporting Indonesia’s international commitments to reduce carbon emissions includes APRIL being the first participant in an Indonesia Ministry of Forestry initiative for a Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) programme in the Kampar Peninsula.
The programme is undertaken by an independent panel consisting of a wide cross-section of government, academics and third party experts and focuses on monitoring, reporting and verification of 19 important indicators including carbon and methane emissions, rates of carbon sequestration and measurement of water table depths on APRIL’s concessions.
The objective of the panel is to make recommendations to the Government on best practices for managing plantation operations on tropical peatlands, eventually to be proposed for adoption by all other concession holders operating on the Kampar Peninsular.