13 volunteers from Singapore environmental group People’s Movement to Stop Haze (PM.Haze) were in Sungai Tohor, a small coastal village in Riau province, earlier this month.
They worked with residents to construct a “canal block” – used to re-wet peatland that had been drained to make way for an acacia plantation by local pulpwood company Lestari Unggul Makmur, or PT LUM.
Building canal blocks is one of the measures taken by the Indonesian government to prevent peatland from drying out. Dry peat burns easily and is hard to put out as fire continues to smoulder underground and spread quickly. Peatland fires in Indonesia were a major contributor to the 2015 haze crisis, said to be among the worst in the region’s history.
“What we hope to do here is show that it’s possible for Singapore and Indonesia to work together for a common good,” said PM.Haze co-founder Tan Yi Han. Watch the video below.
PM.Haze collaborated with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) to build the $3,000 canal block, with money raised from the public.
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 23 May 2017