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 plants 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.