Singapore team digs in to help Riau village combat haze

riau: A group of Singaporeans has been digging up dirt with hoes and machetes in a remote Sumatra village to help stop haze from developing.

The 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 a local pulpwood company.

The volunteers dug up the peat soil and packed it into empty rice sacks, which were then sewn up and stacked in a wooden structure in the canal to trap water and keep the peat moist. A sluice gate helps to control the water level.

“We did only a small part. It’s a lot of manual work. It’s tiring but (the residents) are not complaining and still smiling,” said volunteer Aravindkumaran Sabapathy, 26.

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 spreads 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.

“We want more Singaporeans to witness first hand the hard work of ordinary Indonesians to safeguard their own environment against fires and haze,” said Associate Professor Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, which partnered with PM.Haze.

PM.Haze collaborated with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) to build the canal block, with money raised from the public.

Volunteers said they had joined the trip to better understand the problem that has plagued Indonesia and its neighbours for years and how the locals are tackling it.