Alternative Livelihoods for Women in Peat Land Restoration
My Role
I was responsible for conducting research (gender-based analyses, ethnography, and interviews) on the field mission. The other members of the team were a human rights advisor, project manager, and translator. .
The Objective
In 2016, the Government of Norway approached UNDP Indonesia in establishing a project restoring the peat lands of several provinces in Indonesia. Along with the implementing partner, the Peat Restoration Agency (BRG), the project strove to restore 2.49 million hectares of degraded peat land through a three pronged approach: rewetting, revegetation, and revitalizing local people’s livelihoods. In 2017, for the second phase of the project, the Government of Norway wanted an impact assessment of gender related social and economic development of the communities living in the peat lands.
The Process
The UNDP team first reviewed one of the project’s pilot activities (action research on community-based peat restoration) in Tebing Tinggi Timur sub-distract in the province of Riau where women were primarily responsible for the tree seeding activities to see if this direct involvement contributed to the betterment of women’s welfare and role in social and economic activity. We wanted to see what activities women were involved in peat land communities as a baseline comparison.
We undertook a 3 day mission to Central Kalimantan to conduct interviews with and observe community leaders, cooperative members, and women working in peat land restoration activities. We discovered women were not actively involved, but partook in work related to peat land. There were two areas that were identified: cattle stations and fire brigade.
Cattle Stations
Raising cattle provided ample opportunities in Central Kalimantan as the island has spacious land, large amounts of grass for cow feeding, and the people have experience in breeding cows. In relation to peat restoration, as peat is the primary source for cattle feed, people were motivated to protect and maintain the peat from degradation. In the cattle stations we visited, while the stations were managed by the community, particularly through cooperatives, it was primarily women working there. There were two groups of women: women who performed manual labour in a caretaker capacity at the station, and women who delivered grass every morning and afternoon. Cows were bred from the existing grass in the surrounding peat lands and their waste was utilized for fertilizing the planted grass. We interviewed women who delivered the grass, who were caretakers, and who were part of the cooperatives.
Fire Brigade
The establishment of a fire brigade is a necessity in this region. Peat lands in their normal, wet states are quite fire resistant, however due to over drainage drying out the peat, makes wildfires a real risk. The fire brigade consisted of personnel from several villages. While the majority were men, there were three women who were actively involved, which we interviewed.
The Outcome
When the field research was over, we synthesized the findings and looked for patterns amongst the interviews. We knew there were female representation and participation in both the cattle stations and fire brigade, but due to the gender disparity, women did not play as large of a role as they did in other provinces. Furthermore, we learned that within the women, there were hierarchies. For example, the women manually working in the cattle stations were not involved in the decision-making process, only the cooperative members were. In fact, all the female members of cooperatives were married to men who were of a high social status in the villages. There was a clear demarcation of social class and education (as the women in the cooperatives were able to speak Bahasa Indonesia which is taught in schools, while the workers only spoke the local dialect).
The caretakers of cattle stations were often older women and widowed. The female members of the fire brigade similarly were older and unmarried. The lack of marital status appeared to give these women a sense of freedom and choice. On the other hand, their choice in working these jobs was debatable, especially for the caretakers due to their lower economic standing in the community.
This allowed us to create a strong, well-defined brief showcasing case studies and a set of recommendations regarding:
Division of roles/labour among women
Differences in engagement in decision making among women
Differences in activities (access to control over resources)
• Women’s priorities, challenges, and motivation (eg. unequal access to education, social factors affecting women’s productive labour, increasing poverty levels, etc.