Malaysia shows what protecting and restoring peat swamp forests can yield

Peatlands play a vital role for biodiversity, water supplies, and the overall well-being of communities living near and around them. Across Southeast Asia, protecting these wetland ecosystems has emerged as an important priority amid growing risks from fires, haze pollution, agricultural expansion, and forest clearing across the region. 

In particular, palm oil plantations and logging that involves digging trenches to transport timber can have a harmful effect on peatlands due to the drainage involved. These practices can dry out peatland forests as well as new agricultural areas, increasing overall hazards from fire, smoke, and haze. 

The stakes are long-term as well as severe. Peat is about 90 percent water and 10 percent organic carbon soil accumulated over millennia as a result of the partial decomposition of plant material in waterlogged conditions. When peatland carbon stocks are degraded, they can take centuries to millennia to accumulate again.

With support from the Global Environment Facility, countries making up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been pioneering solutions for the conservation, sustainable management, and restoration of peatland ecosystems that have lessons for tropical countries around the world. A series of GEF-funded projects are showing how peatland restoration and community collaboration can go hand-in-hand, supporting a more sustainable ecosystem with broad benefits.

In Malaysia, peatlands make up three-quarters of the country’s wetlands and are home to important and endangered fauna including Malayan sun bears and clouded leopards; flora such as peat swamp forest trees; and endemic fish species. 

As a result of the country’s efforts to preserve its peatlands, some 10 percent of the country’s 2.5 million hectares of peatlands are currently protected under the status of Special Forest reserves, including the Raja Musa forest reserve in Selangor – a site of the GEF’s Sustainable Management of Peatland Ecosystems in Malaysia project, a partnership between Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy, and Climate Change, the Global Environment Centre – a civil society organization providing technical assistance for the effort and the International Fund for Agriculture Development.

Raja Musa was first developed as a pilot under a GEF-funded ASEAN peatland forest project and is now serving as a demonstration site for what peatland restoration and protection can achieve, particularly when the work happens hand-in-hand. 

During a recent site visit, project manager Ahmad Ainuddin Nuruddin said the peatlands initiative is helping to conserve resources, prevent degradation, and reduce fire risk, with broad expected benefits to current and future generations, already evident through the movement of animals and birds who are spreading seeds between protected and restored areas. 

“Part of Raja Musa Forest Reserve has been affected by recurrent peatlands fires that have degraded the peat swamp forest badly and reduced its biodiversity,” he said. “The fire prevention measures developed by the Selangor State Forest Department have stabilized the water level of the peat and the department has initiated several forest restoration activities. These activities have allowed the planted trees to grow and flourish which will lead to biodiversity recovery in the future … A lesson that we learned from this site is that there is a need for continuous effort in fire prevention activities.” 

Restoring peatlands involves multiple steps. In situations where water was drained, dams need to be built in the form of canal blocks or clay dikes to slow the further outflow of water from peatlands. This can increase the water level and rewet the peat, allowing for restoration of peatland. Other interventions include tree-planting and the use of water level monitoring systems. Firefighters have also received training as part of the project, using award-winning technology for underground peat fires developed as part of the Malaysian strategy for combating haze pollution. 

It is essential to involve locally-based organizations and community members to properly conserve peatland ecosystems for the long term, Ainuddin Nuruddin said.

"Their role in fire prevention is very important and they can be trained as a fire patrol looking out for fire occurrences during the dry period. They provide fast warning and can relay the information to the fire control crews,” he said. “This fast warning is crucial to fire control and suppression efforts. Local communities have this local knowledge and other peatland local communities can benefit from the sharing of this knowledge.”

Officials have also been working to strengthen national policy and institutional capacities related to peatland restoration and sustainable management, resulting in improved overall oversight. They are seeking to replicate the improvements made at Raja Musa in other parts of Malaysia, with lessons across the region.

Already, the results are visible and showcased in the education center of the reserve, which serves together with the peatland trail as a space for learning, partnership, and collaboration with government agencies, civil society organizations, researchers, and representatives of the private sector and local communities.

Such knowledge-sharing is at the center of the Malaysian peatland ecosystem management strategy, with lessons learned in Raja Musa being passed on to other regions, including landscapes in North and South Selangor, in Southeast Pahang, in the Klias Peninsula, and in Maludam Peninsula. The private sector is also starting to get involved to ensure protection and sustainable management of peatlands, with companies in the palm oil sector and other parts of the agricultural value chain taking part in a recent workshop on sustainable agriculture.