Disaster literacy among young peatland farmers in Central Kalimantan

Abstract

The One Million Hectare Peat Clearing Project (PLG) in Central Kalimantan, designed as a rice granary in 1995, has become the door to ecological disasters on peatlands. Canalization that drains the peatlands excessively has sparked fires over the past 23 years, especially during the long dry season. Given the large losses incurred and the high budget for land fire suppression, pre-disaster management is important, one of which is through the concept of disaster literacy. Disaster literacy in this case is a non-structural mitigation approach that focuses on skills and understanding of disasters to reduce disaster risk. This study aims to see the application of the concept of disaster literacy, especially to young peatland farmers who are directly involved in agricultural management in a broad sense through the various existing literatures. The discussion will cover a lot of local wisdom of the community in managing peatlands in relation to the prevention of peatland fires.

Cultural strategies of the local and transmigrant communities in dealing with land and forest fire disasters in West Kotawaringin District, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…The use of natural resources and the environment of local communities in the past were able to maintain the sustainability of the ecological system (Megawati et al 2020). Despite implementing shifting cultivation systems and slash-and-burn systems to meet the food security of their communities (Leo et al 2021), large fires rarely occur, so in the past, the Dayak community, on average, only had experience putting out small fires and rarely have experience fighting large fires on a large scale (Sinta 2021). Empirically, the belief of indigenous peoples, which is manifested as local wisdom, is capable and effective in controlling human behavior that tends to dominate and exploit natural resources arbitrarily because the rules contain what the community must do with the management of their resources which is also accompanied by sanctions (Chisholm 2016;Roslinda 2016;Njau et al 2019).…”

“…TEK is knowledge held by particular people from a specific place that has been developed and applied to specific landscapes for specific purposes by long-time inhabitants (Hufman 2013). Thus, TEK can be in the form of abstract philosophies such as ways of looking at nature, agroecological knowledge, and practices in the form of land management techniques such as peatlands clearing, farming, managing drainage, selecting vegetation types, and applying traditional agroforestry cropping patterns, which indicates the existence of conservation and disaster mitigation as implemented by local communities in Central Kalimantan (Sinta 2021).…”