Learn more

By Titik Kartitiani PULANG PISAU, Indonesia — Bandi paddled through the black swamp, passing alongside banks of high brush outside Kalawa village here in the south of Borneo Island. The narrow canoe, known here as a ces, arrowed through the water, leaving a low ripple in its wake. “Since there’s been community forestry here, we can now protect the forest,” Bandi said as he traversed the peatland. “We look after the forests surrounding our village — they don’t burn.” A national drive to convert some 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of peatland into rice fields by then-president Suharto cl…

cuu