Paludiculture: Peatland utilization for food security

Degraded tropical peatland in Indonesia has been restored since 2016 through 3R efforts including rewetting, revegetation, and revitalization of local livelihood. Many studies concluded that the involvement of the local community is the key to the success of peatland restoration. The restoration that touches the local community’s livelihood will be well accepted and adopted. Paludiculture is cultivation in wetlands. It is an alternative to peatland utilization without drainage. This paper presents challenges and opportunities in the establishment and development of paludiculture and at the same time presents paludiculture species that have been developed in Central Kalimantan province to support food security. A survey on food-producing paludiculture species was carried out in semi-structured interviews and field observation in Central Kalimantan. The results showed that the presence of food-producing paludiculture species was very limited. Lack of information and knowledge on local peatland species, lack of seed sources and inappropriate rewetting techniques were challenges that are being faced in the development of paludiculture.