Enhancing the benefits of tropical peatland restoration for supporting local communities and ecosystem processes.

在维持生态系统服务和减少生物多样性丧失的同时，需要养活快速增长的人口。在世界范围内，人类活动已经使以前大片的自然栖息地退化，对生物多样性和土壤以及生活在这些景观中的当地社区的生计产生了不利影响。印度尼西亚的森林具有极强的生物多样性，但由于热带雨林的广泛消失，这种高度多样性受到了威胁。泥炭沼泽森林含有特别大的碳储量，并支持其他地方没有的独特动植物，但已经被排干和退化，为农业让路，威胁到野生动物，并因树木和土壤的流失而向大气中释放大量碳。最近的森林损失大部分是由于转为油棕种植园造成的，油棕种植园为当地提供了重要的收入来源，尽管排干的泥炭地造成了许多生态系统损害（例如，光秃秃的土地和农业价值低/无农业价值的土壤，空气质量差）。因此，人们采取了一些措施来恢复退化的泥炭地，重点是减少排放，但恢复对生物多样性的潜在共同利益（和风险）以及对依赖农业为生的当地社区的后果尚不清楚。该项目的目的是了解排干泥炭地对生物多样性和当地生计的影响，并根据生物多样性和排放考虑以及当地社区的利益和权衡，研究不同的泥炭地恢复优先次序的方案。退化泥炭林的恢复和排水地区的重新湿润可能使农业区停止生产，从而减少小农的收入和粮食。此外，关于恢复地点的决定需要与地方治理、土地权和权力下放的管理制度相协调，并需要为恢复栖息地的社区确定其他生计选择。森林区域连通性的大小和程度对于维持退化景观中物种的种群网络和促进生物多样性对气候变化的响应也很重要，因此在泥炭地恢复地点的决策中还需要考虑物种对气候变化的连通性和适应性。我们将在这个多学科项目中解决的问题将对生活在印度尼西亚泥炭地景观中的当地社区产生直接影响，但在多功能景观中平衡环境、生物多样性和当地社区需求的更广泛问题将具有广泛的普遍重要性。

There is a requirement to feed a rapidly growing human population whilst maintaining ecosystem services and reducing biodiversity losses. Across the world, previously extensive tracts of natural habitats have been degraded by human activities, with detrimental impacts for biodiversity and soils, and for the livelihoods of local communities living in these landscapes. Indonesia's forests are extremely biologically diverse but this hyper-diversity is threatened due to widespread loss of rainforest. Peat swamp forests contain particularly large stores of carbon and support unique flora and fauna not occurring elsewhere, but have been drained and degraded to make way for agriculture, threatening wildlife and releasing large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere from loss of trees and soil. Much of this recent forest loss is due to conversion to oil palm plantations, which provide important sources of local incomes, although drained peatlands produce many ecosystem disservices (e.g. bare land and soil with low/no agricultural value, poor air quality). Thus there are moves to rehabilitate degraded peatlands with a focus on reducing emissions, but potential co-benefits (and risks) of restoration for biodiversity and consequences for local communities whose livelihoods are dependent on agriculture are not well understood. The aim of this project is to understand the consequences of draining peatlands for biodiversity and local livelihoods, and to examine different scenarios for prioritising peatlands for restoration, according to biodiversity and emissions considerations and local community benefits and trade-offs. Restoration of degraded peat forest and re-wetting of drained areas may remove agricultural areas from production thereby reducing small holder farmer incomes and food. Moreover, decisions about sites to restore need to be compatible with systems of local governance, land rights and devolved administrations, and require the identification of alternative livelihood options for communities in restored habitats. The size and degree of connectivity of forest areas is also important for maintaining population networks of species in degraded landscapes, and for promoting the responses of biodiversity to climate change, and so decisions about peatland locations for restoration also need to include consideration of connectivity and adaptation of species to climate change. The issues we will address in this multi-disciplinary project will have a direct impact on local communities living in Indonesian peatland landscapes but the wider issues of balancing environmental, biodiversity and local community needs in multi-functional landscapes will be of broad generic importance.