Keywords

6.1 Introduction

Let me begin with a short description of my research in Rantau Baru. When I joined the Tropical Peatland Society Project at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in October 2017 as a social anthropologist, I was expected to explore the relationship between people’s lives and the peat environment at the village level, focusing on livelihoods and other cultural practices. This focus concurred with the research and policies developed by the Indonesian Peatland Restoration Agency (Badan Restrasi Gambut, BRG) and its academic partners, which seek to identify local knowledge and practices that might contribute to the 3R restoration strategies (rewetting, revegetation, and revitalization) for degraded peatland. I initially thought this was a relevant approach to seek solutions to the peatland problem. Rantau Baru was a good research site for accessing local wisdom, as the villagers there have lived in peat environments for several generations.

However, as soon as I began fieldwork in the village, I encountered a challenge to finding the local wisdom we had expected. As described in Chap. 3, locals have used peat hinterlands very minimally throughout their peat environment history. Although many villagers responded in the questionnaire survey that they inherited knowledge of peatland cultivation from their ancestors (see Chap. 7, Fig. 7.3), according to villager narratives, actual use of peatland has been quite limited. Indeed, traditional peatland use consisted almost exclusively of maintaining a few sialang tree areas owned by the village,Footnote 1 and occasional logging of timber in the flooded forests during the rainy season (with the use of canoes). Beginning in the mid-1990s, the peat swamp forests around the village were not drained by villagers, but rather by oil palm companies, and since the same period, peatland fires have been burning remaining forests (Binawan and Osawa, Chap. 10).Footnote 2 Villagers have either sold usage rights of sections of bare peatland to companies and urban residents or attempted to plant oil palm trees themselves by adopting the companies’ agricultural techniques. Repeated peatland fires and the haze they generate have threatened villagers’ lives, and the locals today recognize the urgent necessity of preventing future fires (see Chaps. 3 and 5). They understand that the repeated fires are not caused by their traditional methods of using the land, but mainly by “the carelessness of fires among anglers from cities” (see Osawa and Binawan, Chap. 3) and illegal land clearing by fire in oil palm plantations owned by companies or urban residents (Binawan and Osawa, Chap. 10). Given the villagers’ negligible economic reliance on the peat hinterlands, their knowledge of the peat environment is limited.

Where, then, should we have found local wisdom, knowledge, and practices? Traditional peatland knowledge and practice is inherited from ancestors, and for generations, the peat swamp forests were hard to access or use for cultivation, and forest products were collected only during the flood season. Indeed, the village elders often justified their limited peatland knowledge by explaining how difficult it was to access and use the forests. Therefore, traditional knowledge and practices relating to the peatlands represented a small part of their life.

The prevailing view is that local wisdom can contribute to peatland restoration strategies—rewetting and revegetating—and revitalizing the livelihoods of local communities. In other words, local wisdom is knowledge and practice that may include innovative techniques for restoring the peatland or effective methods to mobilize and engage local communities in restoration activities. What could be an example of such “local wisdom”? For instance, it may be possible to claim that (1) the local practice of protecting sialang areas can be useful for peatland conservation, (2) traditional social institutions and networks can help organize local fire-prevention groups, or (3) knowledge of palm oil cultivation gained through working in company plantations can be applied to the peatland in Rantau Baru to develop more effective methods of peatland usage. As we can see from these three examples alone, what could be considered “local wisdom,” in terms of its origin or how long it has been held or practiced, is ambiguous and arbitrary. Furthermore, the conceptual framework used to extract and formulate local wisdom is not in villagers’ hands, but rather in those of researchers, and thus risks ignoring the village’s rich social and cultural contexts. For the past several decades, anthropologists and development sociologists have debated and critiqued these shortcomings and other aspects of local wisdom, and its “parent concept” of Indigenous Knowledge.

Indigenous Knowledge (or IK) is often invoked in international development aid programs to support improvements in Global South standards of living and in environmental conservation programs to promote the sustainable use of ecosystems and resources. Proponents of an IK approach argue that it contributes to both the practical and ethical goals of such programs by not only providing scientists and development practitioners with previously unknown facts and new “know-how,” but also by empowering locals who have been marginalized by centralized policies. Anthropologists and development sociologists, however, have questioned the value and validity of IK, arguing that the concept is too ambiguous and may cause adverse effects. The variant concept of local wisdom, which is most often used in Indonesia, involves a similar level of ambiguity and risk as IK. While many studies on peatland restoration in recent years claim the value of local wisdom, deeper analysis of the concept and its application reveals that despite its ethical ideals, its contribution to restoration goals is at best uncertain, and at worst, burdensome for locals.

This chapter presents a critical inquiry of the relevance and validity of the concept of local wisdom and associated academic approaches to the peatland problem. First, I examine the emergence of the IK concept in the fields of international development and environmental conservation and provide an overview of the current debates surrounding the concept among anthropologists and development sociologists. Second, I outline the history and use of the local wisdom concept in Indonesia and examine its application in recent academic research on peatland problems. In doing so, I demonstrate how it has evolved into its ideology. Finally, I highlight the limitations of the local wisdom approach given the realities of Rantau Baru and provide some suggestions on how to better study peatland problems in local areas.

Although there are many approaches to peatland restoration, I focus on the local wisdom approach in this chapter. The utopian idealism surrounding the local wisdom concept narrows researchers’ epistemic perspectives to local lives. In seeking local wisdom, the approach also confines the problem to local areas, thereby invariably attributing responsibility to locals. Instead of relying on the IK or local wisdom concept, which can suspend knowledge in a static state, researchers should consider knowledge as fluid and dynamic, and enhance communication, interactions, and transformations among different knowledge sources. In particular, strengthening cooperation between locals, urban residents, companies, and government entities may provide more opportunities to build a broad network and achieve peatland restoration goals.

In this chapter, I use the terms “IK” and “local wisdom” to refer to the concepts that have been formulated in the transnational and Indonesian national discourses respectively. However, when referring to local ways of life and intellections emerging from everyday life, I use expressions such as “local knowledge” and “traditional knowledge and practice.”

6.2 IK and the Hegemony of Knowledge

6.2.1 Development of the IK Concept and Its Application

The concept of IK can be understood, first and foremost, by its relationship with “Western,” “scientific,” or “centralized” knowledge. There is no doubt that information transfer has occurred across various regions of the world since ancient times. Typically, when one region gains a dominant position as a center, its knowledge spreads out and becomes predominant, often even in the margins. By the middle of the seventeenth century, European countries had gained the predominant position through colonialization in several regions in the world. While introducing European technologies and knowledge to their colonies, colonial powers extracted knowledge from the colonized areas to develop scientific knowledge in home countries. Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particular attention was paid to local plants and herbs that were useful for medical care (Ellen and Harris 2000, pp. 8–12). Although this process depended on local knowledge, it ultimately incorporated that knowledge into existing Western, scientific, and centralized knowledge systems, muting how it had been embedded in local society and culture. Ellen and Harris (2000, p. 11) claim that “the European relationship with local Asian knowledge was […] to acknowledge it through scholarly and technical appropriation and yet somehow to deny it by re-ordering it in cultural schema which link it to an explanatory system which is proclaimed western.” As colonialism expanded, the local knowledge of the colonies came to be regarded as primitive and marginal vis-à-vis Western scientific knowledge, and this view prevailed until the latter half of the twentieth century.

The relationship between Western scientific knowledge and local knowledge began to be reconsidered in the mid-1960s. This shift was motivated by both practical and romantic reasons (Ellen and Harris 2000, pp. 12–14). On the one hand, modern scientific knowledge recognized that local knowledge in non-Western worlds held practical potential, and thus could contribute to the development of scientific knowledge (Warren et al. 1995, p. xvii). In particular, academic and industrial researchers have documented local knowledge of flora and fauna with the expectation that it serves the development of modern biotechnology and medicine (Posey 2000, p. 35; Slikkerveer and Slikkerveer 1995). On the other hand, the poetry and aesthetics that emerge from the relationship between locals and their natural surroundings were idealized and praised (Ellen and Harris 2000, p. 13).

Since the 1970s, studies have repeatedly pointed to the limits of top-down or centralized modernization approaches planned in laboratories and offices by academic scholars and central government officials (e.g., Ferguson 1994). To overcome these limits, “bottom-up” approaches associated with keywords such as “participation,” “grassroots,” and “empowerment” have been developed. These approaches stress the importance of local agencies, and thus involve local populations in planning and decision making. At the same time, they relativize the supremacy of development plans that are formulated based on Western, scientific, modern, or centralized knowledge (Hobart 1993). As part of this process, the valuation of local knowledge has been gradually incorporated into international development aid to the Global South. It was in this context that the term “indigenous knowledge” was first explored as a concept in the edited volume Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Development (Brokensha et al. 1980).

An appreciable number of social and cultural anthropologists, development sociologists, and human geographers have acknowledged the positive role of IK, emphasizing the importance of documenting and employing “indigenous knowledge systems” (Warren et al. 1995; Slikkerveer and Dechering 1995). Warren et al. (1995) highlight IK’s significance and practicability in development programs, as it “forms the information base for a society which facilitates communication and decision-making” (Warren et al. 1995, p. xv). In explaining their interdisciplinary approach to IK systems, they note that “Once the methodologies for documenting these [indigenous knowledge] systems are introduced into training institutes in a given country, the recorded systems can be systematically deposited and stored for use by development practitioners” (Warren et al. 1995, p. xviii). During the 1980s, the concept of IK was also incorporated into ecological conservation efforts in reaction to failed programs that excluded locals (Berkes 2004, p. 623; Lanzano 2013, p. 3; Slikkerveer and Dechering 1995). In the decades that followed, IK has been idealized as something accumulated and developed by locals living harmoniously and symbiotically with their natural surroundings for generations.

Since the 1990s, various international institutions have announced their positive engagement with IK systems. For example, in 1996, the World Bank declared its commitment to IK as a “Knowledge Bank.” In 2002, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems Programmes (LINKS) to preserve and promote IK. Since 2010, several international conferences related to development and environmental issues have confirmed the importance of IK (Slikkerveer 2019, pp. 35–39). Many related projects are operating all over the world as part of the Sustainable Development Goals scheme. UNESCO’s website (n.d.) defines IK and its role as follows:

Local and indigenous knowledge refers to the understandings, skills and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings. […] This knowledge is integral to a cultural complex that also encompasses language, systems of classification, resource use practices, social interactions, ritual and spirituality. These unique ways of knowing are important facets of the world’s cultural diversity, and provide a foundation for locally-appropriate sustainable development.

In this definition, UNESCO (1) asserts IK’s practical efficacy as “a foundation for locally-appropriate sustainable development,” and (2) assigns it an ethical value as “important facets of cultural diversity” (including language, ritual, spirituality, and so on).

6.2.2 Debates Surrounding Indigenous and Local Knowledge

Both the conceptualization and application of IK have been the subject of criticism in anthropology and development sociology. First, the meaning of “indigenous” has been problematized. Indigenous knowledge is necessarily linked to “indigenous peoples,” who can be defined as those having historical continuity in a place, cultural distinctiveness, social marginalization, self-identification, and self-governance (Dove 2006; Osawa 2022). However, this definition is controversial, and its interpretation varies depending on the state or area. Because the term, regardless of its interpretation, marks a clear distinction between non-indigenous and “indigenous” or “native” peoples, it may cause tensions and discrimination between the two (Dove 2006; Ellen and Harris 2000, pp. 2–3).

The fluid interpretations of IK variations, such as “traditional ecological knowledge” and “local knowledge,” are similarly criticized. Lanzano (2013, p. 4), for example, notes that “tradition” can be constructed for a specific political purpose and “local” denotes a marginalized position in relation to a larger, centralized power. In short, labeling knowledge as “indigenous,” “traditional,” or “local” establishes a contrast with other kinds of knowledge, such as “universal,” “Western,” “scientific,” “modern,” or “centralized,” thus resulting in “othering elements or systems of knowledge that do not fit in the corpus of” Western, modern, and centralized knowledge (Lanzano 2013, p. 4; see also Ellen and Harris 2000, p. 26).

Along the same lines, the meaning of “knowledge” has also been problematized. In his pioneering work, Agrawal (1995) questions the dichotomy of Western scientific knowledge versus IK, and he deconstructs the universality and assumed supremacy of the former. He further argues that applying IK to development and environmental programs causes IK to be appropriated by the more power-laden scientific knowledge, resulting in the “strangulation [of IK] by centralized control and management” (Agrawal 1995, p. 428). In their critical examination of IK from an anthropological perspective, Ellen and Harris (2000) point out that the epistemic origin of both scientific knowledge and IK is most often unknown, and this anonymity sustains the distinction between them. When the origin of knowledge is revealed, the validity of and emphasis on IK may be put into question (see also Dove 2000). Taking a philosophical approach, Horsthemke (2021) notes that knowledge in the IK concept is presumed as the three types of knowledge, i.e. “promotional, theoretical or factual; practical or skill-type; and finally, acquaintance- or familiarity-type” (Horsthemke 2021, p. 6), but in reality, knowledge is composed of “beliefs,” “truths,” and “appropriate justifications,” which are sustained by experience, evidence, and testimony, and such knowledge cannot be divided into “local” or “indigenous” forms (Horsthemke 2021, pp. 43–96).

Scholars have also criticized the methodology of IK systems. Ellen and Harris (2000) remind us that although IK is essentially negotiable, fluid, and embedded in a specific social and cultural context, the IK approach involves a process of “collecting,” “codifying,” and “decontextualizing” IK in order to incorporate it into Western scientific knowledge. This process does not provide an adequate understanding of locals’ knowledge. Worse still, the knowledge thus extracted may then be imposed on local communities as “top-down” policies instead of the “bottom-up” ideal. According to Olivier de Sardan (2005), the need to demonstrate the “participation” of locals, a main tenet of the IK approach, contributes to an “ideological populism,” which “paints reality in the colours of its dreams, and has a romantic vision of popular knowledge.” He then draws a contrast between ideological and methodological populism, noting that the latter “considers that ‘grassroots’ groups and social actors have knowledge and strategies that should be explored, without commenting on their value or validity” (Olivier de Sardan 2005, p. 9).

Upon reading “recent works constructed around local knowledge or agency of ‘grassroots’ actors,” de Sardan notes:

[…] we observe that one can simultaneously succumb to ideological populism, through a systematic idealization of competences of the people, in terms either of autonomy or of resistance, while obtaining innovative results thanks to methodological populism, which sets itself the task of describing the agency and the pragmatic and cognitive resources that all actors have, regardless of the degree of domination or deprivation in which they live. (Olivier de Sardan 2005, p. 9)

In other words, the IK approach involves the systematic idealization of knowledge, obscuring the relationships between locals and the states or capitals that have intervened in their lives.

In terms of the conservation of ecosystems and resources, Berkes (2004) points out that although community-based approaches, including the IK approach, may be effective in conservation programs when locals and conservation practitioners share the same objectives, this is not always the case. He underlines that typically “local rules are about use, allocation, and conflict management and not about preservation per se” (Berkes 2004, p. 625), and that local people make resource use decisions in the context of larger, international, and capital systems (Berkes 2004). Describing historical and present-day forest preservation practices in Burkina Faso, Lanzano summarizes the problems with IK-inspired research:

[…] IK-inspired research bears some ambiguities, such as the risk of proposing reductionist and effectiveness-oriented explanations of complex social and cultural phenomena. Here is where the reflection over indigenous knowledge connects with the ‘ecologically noble savage’ debate, raising doubts over the possibility of clearly identifying conservationists’ attitudes among indigenous people when conservation is defined as any action purposely intended to preserve resources (Lanzano 2013, p. 14).

On the other hand, some scholars have defended the value of the IK concept and approaches. The development anthropologist Sillitoe (1998, 2002) recognizes the ambiguity of the concept and the risks of IK approaches, but emphasizes its usefulness to development projects. He draws a distinction between IK research as an applied method and anthropological research as an intellectual pursuit. He insists that IK can “introduce a locally informed perspective into development to promote an appreciation of indigenous power structures and know-how” (Sillitoe 1998, p. 224). Sillitoe (2002) also underlines that the application of IK can be an effective countermeasure when responding to the imposition of Western, scientific, and centralized knowledge occurring in the context of the rapid globalization and modernization penetrating local lives. In his later work, Sillitoe (2007) uses the term “local science” (as opposed to “global science”) instead of IK. Slikkerveer et al. (2019) also describes IK as “neo-ethnoscience” and applies it to poverty reduction efforts in Indonesia, proposing a method of “integrated community managed development.”

Indeed, in the field of environmental conservation, studies have increasingly tried to integrate IK systems and natural science (e.g., Alexander et al. 2011; Geleta 2015). For example, Berkes and Berkes (2009) demonstrate the need to incorporate local knowledge in scientific approaches, characterizing the former as involving a holistic perspective that assesses complex ecosystems qualitatively with many variables. Nakagawa (Chap. 4) emphasizes the contributions of local environmental knowledge in assessing the conditions of the freshwater ecosystem of the Kampar River.

Ultimately, the crux of the debate around the validity of IK can be located in the relationship between knowledge and power. On the one hand, IK has emancipatory potential as a means for locals to break free from the “top-down” imposition of scientific knowledge and centralized policies. It also enables scientists to openly turn their attention toward local knowledge and practices that may contain phenomena and principles unknown to them. On the other hand, the IK concept and approach may alienate locals and allow their knowledge, dislodged from rich local contexts, to be further dominated by Western scientific knowledge. Despite its idealized features, IK, as an ambiguous framework created by observers, conceals the inequality of power between Western scientific and local knowledge. Yet, this dilemma does not stop countless IK projects from continuing to operate. In this situation, the inclusion of an IK approach should be assessed according to the balance of advantages and disadvantages that emerge depending on the goals and specific context of each program (Lanzano 2013, pp. 5–6).

6.3 Local Wisdom in Indonesia and Peatland Restoration Policy

6.3.1 Local Wisdom: From Concept to Policy to Ideology

In studies of Indonesia, there is less consistency in the usage of the term IK than in studies of other countries. Several variant expressions are used to indicate various aspects of locals’ knowledge. For example, in their analysis of archetypal anthropology research topics in Indonesia, such as ritual, social change, and identity, Puspitorini and Hunter (2020) employ the English term “indigenous knowledge,” combining UNESCO’s definition and the classic definition of “local knowledge” by Clifford Geertz relating to “cultural patterns.” Slikkerveer et al. (2019) also use the term “indigenous knowledge,” but specifically to refer to social institutions and networks that can contribute to poverty reduction. Nugroho et al. (2018) adopt the term “local knowledge” in contrast to “scientific” and “professional” knowledge and explore the potential of “local knowledge” to contribute to policymaking. Recent studies have increasingly used the term “local wisdom” in English, or kearifan lokal in Indonesian. This is often the case in studies that focus on relationships between local communities and their natural environments and on resource management practices inherited over generations.

The term “local wisdom” became widely used during the era of decentralization and democratization in Indonesia. Several factors explain this. As mentioned above, the term “indigenous” is necessarily linked to the concept of “indigenous peoples,” which is transnationally defined. However, the Indonesian government does not use the term “indigenous” in national policies to refer to specific groups of people, declaring instead that all ethnic groups in Indonesia are “indigenous” or “native” (Ellen and Harris 2000, p. 5; Osawa 2022, p. 13). In addition, since the end of Suharto’s centralized regime, decentralization and democratization, including the empowerment of locals, have been prioritized. In this context, then, it is not surprising that the term “local” has been adopted rather than “indigenous”: not only is it more appropriate, it also can mitigate, to a certain extent, the risk of being drawn into debates surrounding indigeneity.

On the other hand, use of the term “wisdom,” or kearifan, has a clear history of use in Indonesian studies that pre-dates the use of “local wisdom.” For example, we can find similar terms, such as “environmental wisdom” (kearifan lingkungan) (Zakaria 1994) and “traditional wisdom” (kearifan tradisional) (Nababan 1995), in works published during the mid-1990s. These studies assert the importance of employing traditional knowledge and practice in environmental conservation and sustainable resource management efforts. In the context of studies on agriculture in swampy lands, Hidayat (2000) used the term “cultural wisdom” (kearifan budaya) to refer to tidal irrigation without extensive drainage, which has been practiced among the farmers of Banjar Malays in Kalimantan.

The term “local wisdom” became more frequently used during the subsequent decade. For example, Lubis (2005, p. 239) directly associates “local wisdom” with “indigenous knowledge” and discusses its value in resource management. During the early 2000s in general, “local wisdom” was seen as something that (1) was accumulated by traditional (or adat) communities living close to natural surroundings, especially forests, and (2) was about to disappear in a coming wave of modernization (Lubis 2005; Santoso 2006; Nurjaya 2007). At the same time, anthropologists linked the term to the concept of “local genius,” regarding kearifan lokal as a long-enduring knowledge formed to sustain a people’s existence in a specific locale (Sartini 2004). In this view, locals incorporate external cultural knowledge and practices with internal ones (see Ruastiti 2011). Noor and Jumberi (2007), agricultural scientists who studied the use of peat and swampy lands in Kalimantan, adopted the terms “local cultural wisdom” (kearifan budaya lokal) and “local wisdom,” noting that local knowledge can be transformed in communication.Footnote 3 Some scholars during this period therefore considered kearifan lokal not solely as existing traditional knowledge and practice, but as something gained from interaction with external cultural knowledge.

However, the usage of the concept of local wisdom has changed in subsequent years. The present-day concept adopts a hybrid of the above views: while it refers to locals’ cultural knowledge and practice accumulated through interaction with their natural surroundings over generations that continues to exist today, acknowledgment of the influences of external cultural knowledge is muted. This hybrid form of the concept is included in Indonesia’s Law Number 32 of 2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (Maria 2018). In the law, “local wisdom” is defined as a value formed in an idealized relationship with the natural surroundings, or an embodiment of “the noble values prevailing in the society’s life to protect and manage sustainable living environment”Footnote 4 (Maria 2018, p. 2). In this definition, the historical continuity of local wisdom is not emphasized. The law obligates the government to implement environmental policies with “recognition of and respect for the local wisdom and environmental wisdom” and to provide local communities with “social, cultural and economic benefit.”Footnote 5

In 2017, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry introduced Ministerial Regulation Number P.34, which also declares the need to recognize and respect local wisdom.Footnote 6 While adopting the same definition of local wisdom as that in the environmental law of 2009, this regulation also uses the term “traditional knowledge” (pengetahuan traditional). According to the regulation, traditional knowledge is “part of local wisdom,” has strong links with adat law community (Masyarakat Hukum Adat, explained later), exhibits historical continuity over generations, and contributes to the sustainable management of natural resources and the environment.Footnote 7

Concurring with Regulation Number P.34, the Indonesian jurist Kristiyanto (2017) claims that local wisdom is broader in scope than “traditional knowledge,” because it is something implemented, articulated, and manifested under environmental laws in Indonesia (Kristiyanto 2017, p. 161). He explains that:

Local wisdom is perceived by individuals or communities who interact with the natural surroundings and is therefore cultural knowledge owned by certain groups. It includes models of sustainable natural resource management and how to maintain relationships with nature through wise and responsible use. Thus, local wisdom is a system that integrates knowledge, culture, and institutions, as well as the practice of managing natural resources (Kristiyanto 2017, p. 161 [author’s translation]).

In using the terms “implementation,” “articulation,” and “manifestation,” Kristiyanto seems to see local wisdom not just as locals’ knowledge, but also as something manifested in communication between locals and the government. He deems that the “models” of sustainable resource management can be found in local wisdom, and throughout his argument, stresses the efficacy of local wisdom to promote local “participation” (partisipasi) in policy implementation (Kristiyanto 2017).

When IK is expressed as “local wisdom,” it is almost always done so in the context of human-environment relations. Local wisdom is seen as a connection between people and their natural surroundings that has been developed over many generations. It therefore denotes a competency on the part of locals to manage the surrounding environment and resources sustainably. Recognizing and respecting local wisdom, then, (1) provides locals with social, cultural, and economic benefits, (2) contributes to forming “models” of sustainable management, and (3) facilitates “participation” in policymaking. The concept of local wisdom allows us to create an image of an idealized harmony between people and their natural surroundings based on long enduring and static features of the way locals live. The concept also assumes a homogeneity and internal cohesion within each local community. In the process of its inclusion in environmental law and national policy, this narrative of local wisdom, with its dual focus on practical efficacy and harmony with natural surroundings, seems to have transformed into a kind of ideology.

It should be noted here that local wisdom in this context does not emphasize the values of language, rituals, and spirituality that are stressed in UNESCO’s definition of IK. In addition, although some scholars, such as Sartini (2004) and Kristiyanto (2017), imply that elements of local wisdom are dynamically generated and transformed through communication with external cultures, laws, and policies, this is a relatively minor view, and this point is usually muted in recent studies of the peatland problem, which emphasize the “local” in “local wisdom,” as mentioned later.

6.3.2 BRG’s Approach to Local Wisdom

Similar to the above interpretations, BRG uses the term local wisdom to refer to locals’ traditional use of natural resources and cultivation methods and asserts its efficacy in peatland restoration.Footnote 8 The homepage of BRG’s website (n.d.) shows their respect for local wisdom by sharing a link to an article on the Mongabay news platform (Arumingtyas 2017). While the article does not provide a definition, it underlines the need to form a “model” of peatland restoration based on local wisdom and simultaneously suggests its efficacy to facilitate “participation” for the purpose of improving locals’ economic situation. The guidelines of BRG’s Peatland Care Village (Desa Peduli Gambut, DPG) program (BRG 2017, p. 10, 66; Hasegawa, Chap. 8) quotes passages from Law Number 32 of 2009 on Environmental Protection and Management when defining local wisdom. The reports compiled by the DPG program, which describe the situation of administrative villages in the peat environment, include a section titled “local wisdom and knowledge” (kearifan dan pengtahuan lokal) or “local wisdom in natural resource management” (kearifan lokal dalam pengelolaan sumber daya alam). These sections outline the local agricultural products commonly cultivated in peatlands, traditional institutions of environmental management, and so forth (e.g., BRG 2019).

In sum, BRG views local wisdom as locals’ relationship with the environment and seeks to harness its potential to achieve improvements in the local economy, which is related to the strategy of “revitalization.” However, it should be stressed here that BRG does not emphasize the historical continuity of local wisdom and its potential to restore the ecosystem of degraded peatland and prevent peatland fires, which is particularly related to the strategies of “rewetting” and “revegetation.” Quoting the 2017 Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, the DPG program guidelines recognize the limit of local wisdom, as it is applicable to only specific areas where the locals live (BRG 2017, p. 66).Footnote 9 Therefore, the DPG reports treat local wisdom as part of basic village information, but do not evaluate it as directly related to restoring degraded ecosystems and preventing fires. In arguing for the need to promote social forestry programs in local areas, Haris Gunawan, one of BRG’s four deputies during 2016–2021, and Afriyanti (Gunawan and Afriyanti 2019) seem to use the term “local wisdom” as a synonym of “local practices” (praktik-practik lokal), which can be seen as traditional, but changeable. Indeed, they conclude that “the conventional local wisdom still needs to be upgraded (ditingkatkan)” (Gunawan and Afriyanti 2019, p. 236 [author’s translation]) through the introduction of wetland cultivation and forestry methods that BRG promotes. Myrna Safitri (2020), who has also been one of the four deputies since 2016, explores how environmental laws treat the legitimacy of land clearing by fire. She examines the definition of local wisdom, which she sees as transforming in accordance with changes in the environment and suggests the need to create a “new local wisdom” (kearifan lokal baru) by introducing the new technology of peatland clearing without fire (Pengelolaan Lahan Gambut Tampa Bakar: PLTB). The BRG leaders therefore view local wisdom less as something that is always harmonious with the environment or historically continuous, and more as dynamic and flexible one.

This view of local wisdom is consistent with BRG’s approaches, in which they have implemented a variety of programs that “renew” or “upgrade” local knowledge and practices. For example, through its DPG program, BRG selects, trains, and dispatches a facilitator to each administrative village for a certain period to promote restoration programs in the village (BRG 2017, pp. 30–31; Ramdhan and Siregar 2018, p. 155). BRG also promotes social forestry programs in peatlands that are managed by the locals themselves (Gunawan and Afriyanti 2019). These programs involve adapting local knowledge and practice to realize restoration goals. For BRG, local wisdom is something that (1) should be respected as required by the environmental law, (2) can contribute to formulating models of peatland management, and (3) can facilitate local participation. However, to achieve peatland restoration, it is essential to improve upon such wisdom through communicating with locals, exchanging knowledge among all stakeholders, and introducing suitable technologies and methods. Based on this perspective, BRG views local wisdom as changeable through communication and interaction, and indeed has tried to change it.

6.3.3 Academic Approaches to Local Wisdom in Relation to the Peatland Problem

Even before the conceptualization of local wisdom in the environmental law of 2009 and the establishment of BRG in 2016, many studies had examined the potential of traditional knowledge and practices to mitigate the drying and degradation of peatlands (Hidayat 2000; Noor and Jumberi 2007; Noorginayuwati et al. 2007). This is especially evident in the studies on rice and vegetable cultivation using tidal irrigation in peat swamps among Banjar Malays in Kalimantan. In this tidal irrigation system, shallow drainage ditches are dug in tidally-influenced wetlands to create rice paddies and vegetable gardens. Thus, groundwater levels in peatlands are not lowered excessively, preventing peatland drying and fires. Since peatland degradation and fires became a problem in the 1990s, researchers have studied not only these agricultural techniques, but also traditional customs, institutions, and beliefs in the area, which have been comprehensively described as “cultural wisdom” (Hidayat 2000) or “local cultural wisdom” (Noor and Jumberi 2007). In recent years, however, quite a few researchers identify a particular knowledge or practice as “local wisdom.” These studies assume the historical continuity and static nature of local wisdom (in contrast to BRG’s view). Employing various methodologies from a range of disciplines, they attempt to discover innovative technologies to mitigate the degradation of peatland and peatland fires and to formulate effective models to facilitate local participation in peatland restoration activities.

Examples of such knowledge include traditional hydrological technology using shallow and narrow trenches (Astiani et al. 2019), tidal irrigation technology in peatlands (Hairani and Noor 2020), local construction and management of canal blockages (Utami and Salim 2021), traditional cultivation of agricultural products such as sago, coconut, coffee, and rubber (Jalil and Sulistyani 2020; Jufri et al. 2018; Lestani et al. 2019), and techniques to improve the quality of peatland timber (Supriyati et al. 2016). This knowledge, thus identified as local wisdom, is deemed essential for peatland restoration in various case studies. However, we can find a tendency in these studies to presuppose historical continuity and sustainability, thus revealing the influence of an idealized conceptualization and discourse of local wisdom, or indeed an ideology, which restricts researchers’ perspectives.

How does this happen? First, this research approach focuses on or extracts traditional knowledge or practice only as a prescription that can contribute to peatland restoration in a results-oriented way and fails to consider how and why such knowledge or practices are adopted within the local context. For example, although clearing of peatland by fire is commonly practiced to improve yields (Murniati and Suharti 2018, pp. 1396–1397; Lestani et al. 2019), studies fail to mention it in terms of local wisdom at all.Footnote 10 The historical context of locals’ knowledge and its significance to daily practices is also muted. For example, Astiani et al. (2019) demonstrate the efficacy of traditionally constructed shallow and narrow trenches (parit cacing) in preventing fires and CO2 emissions and the need to spread the principles of the technique to other areas. However, by failing to associate the technique with its historical context (i.e., limited available construction tools), they neglect the present-day likelihood that farmers may prefer to dig deeper trenches using backhoes. Locals’ knowledge and practice are embedded in their lives, which are sustained by their institutions, materiality, environmental characteristics, aspirations, relational reciprocity, cosmology and so on. By reducing this complex interconnectivity to a single concept of “local wisdom,” the researchers simplify this knowledge and practice, only highlighting its efficacy vis-à-vis a particular external goal.

Second, although the studies more or less mention local wisdom as historically accumulated in a harmonious relationship with the environment, they rarely examine the origin of the knowledge and practice they identify as local wisdom. For example, some studies see traditional peatland use for general livelihood in Riau (such as the cultivation of coconut, sago palm, rubber and areca nuts) as local wisdom and suggest that it can be effective in controlling peatland degradation and fires (Jalil and Sulistyani 2020; Utami and Salim 2021). However, as Dove (2000) points out, the planting method used for rubber trees was introduced to smallholders a century ago, and since then, the cultivation area has repeatedly expanded and reduced depending on the international market price of the product. The history and nature of the cash crops of coconut, coffee, and areca nuts are similar (see also Furukawa 1994, p. 152). The origins of this practice (the cultivation of livelihood crops on peatland), then, do not square with the image of local wisdom as something developed in a harmonious relationship with nature over many generations.

In a similar vein, Utami and Salim (2021) describe canal blockings constructed and maintained by locals in a village of Sungai Tohor in the Meranti Islands District, Riau, as local wisdom. Although they describe the villager who created the method (to make the land suitable for sago cultivation), they do not mention when this was, how the villager got the idea, or the recent phenomenon of national NGOs and the government providing significant financial support for the construction.Footnote 11 By failing to do so, they obscure any external influences that may have played a role in the origin and evolution of this “local wisdom.” While additional knowledge could have quickly been gained through communication with external sources of knowledge, the land use and cultivation is unilaterally labeled as “local wisdom” with no detailed examination that might uncover how and why the practice developed over time. Although it is possible to refer to local knowledge and practices that were introduced to the local community in the recent past as “local wisdom,” such labeling relies on an idealized and static definition that is subject to ambiguity. This labeling of “local wisdom” also draws a sharp contrast with Western interaction with IK before the mid-twentieth century, which involved Western science habitually co-opting IK and in the process concealing its origins in local knowledge and practices (Ellen and Harris 2000, pp. 12–14). However, the similarity remains in that such identification of “local wisdom” is entirely dependent on the intent and interests of researchers or non-locals.

Finally, the studies single out a small number of traditional peatland uses, failing to acknowledge or value the heterogeneity of knowledge, or the dynamism of economic activity and agency within each local community. Dewi (Chap. 7) and Hesegawa (Chap. 8) respectively point out a significant gap in the peatland knowledge of men and women and the difficulty of integrating opinions in Rantau Baru, demonstrating the diversity of knowledge and attitudes within a community. Additionally, people living in peat environments choose multiple livelihoods in response to market demand and productivity (Lubis 2013, p. 66; Masuda et al. 2016, pp. 207–208). For locals, selling peatland to companies and urban residents, or planting oil palms and constructing large and deep ditches, are economically rational choices to improve their economic standing (Lubis 2013, pp. 49–50; Osawa and Binawan, Chap. 3). Reducing the variety of local knowledge and practice to “local wisdom” ignores such dynamism of economic activity. Moreover, local aspirations for peatland use are also often heterogeneous, even within one community, thus the adoption of a “representative method” as local knowledge may not guarantee the participation of all, or even a majority of, villagers. Even if one could formulate a peatland management model as local wisdom, it may be challenging to apply such a model in communities that have used peatlands in different ways.

In short, the prevailing academic approach to local wisdom in peatland studies does not adequately consider the contexts, dynamism, and diversity of local knowledge and practices. Designating one specific practice or piece of knowledge as local wisdom thus runs the risk of simplifying its history, misunderstanding its institutions, overlooking its heterogeneous use within a local community, and disregarding the diverse ways it is communicated and adapted in relationships with non-locals. In arbitrarily selecting an aspect of local knowledge and practice as local wisdom, researchers codify it into something of use for addressing the peatland problem through scientific procedures or by connecting it to a disciplinary paradigm. Through this process, local wisdom is removed from the messy, dynamic context of everyday lives in a locality and becomes instead a researcher’s perspective of the world. In this way, the local wisdom approach does not relativize the relationship between Western, scientific, or centralized knowledge and local or indigenous knowledge. Instead, it reinforces the boundaries between both sets of knowledge and validates the supremacy of the former. The concept of local wisdom may have merit in shifting scientists’ (especially, natural scientists’) attention to the life of locals. However, it simultaneously carries the risk of confining scientists’ research perspective to a particular aspect of knowledge or one practice among many in local life at a specific time, which is deemed suitable to label as “local wisdom.”

6.3.4 Ideological Idealism: Adat and Local Wisdom

This narrow research perspective is justified by the ideology that promotes an idealized narrative of local wisdom. According to that narrative, local wisdom has accumulated among locals through lengthy experiences living together and harmoniously with their natural surroundings. Therefore, the locals can competently manage the environment and its resources sustainably (see also Li 2001, p. 657). More specifically, in the context of peatland problems, it is assumed that people have lived in the peat environment since before the dramatic increase in fires and thus, (1) their past peatland use is sustainable, and (2) their knowledge can be applied to solving the peatland problem.

We can trace this idealized narrative and today’s usage of local wisdom back to the colonial era conceptualization of adat. The image of a community’s local wisdom coincides, or indeed could be a descendant of, “adat law community” (Masyarakat Hukum Adat), which was conceived and articulated by Cornelis van Vollenhoven and Dutch Leiden scholars around the turn of the twentieth century (Burns 1989; Li 2001, p. 659; Henley and Davidson 2007, pp. 19–25). The concept of adat (tradition, custom, or customary law) was developed to govern the islands outside Java and was regarded as an all-inclusive world view. The scholars viewed adat community as an organic whole in which people were well-organized and connected with the natural world through spiritual beliefs and practices. According to this view, “adat law” (adatrecht; hukum adat) in a community is seen as able to restore and maintain balance in the world (Burns 1989, pp. 56–57). Although the concepts of adat and local wisdom are based on a similar imagining, adat is used to demonstrate local philosophy, religions, and laws, and local wisdom is used to demonstrate local technology and science. Both concepts are conceived and applied by outsiders to govern or “manage” local areas. Both have also been firmly incorporated into Indonesian law: Law Number 32 of 2009 on Environmental Protection and Management obligates the government to recognize and respect “adat law” and “adat law community” together with local wisdom.Footnote 12

Following independence, the concept of “adat law community” was clearly included in the Republic of Indonesia’s 1945 constitution (see also Binawan and Osawa, Chap. 10). However, as various national laws were imposed across the archipelago during Suharto’s era, the legal and religious aspects of adat law were gradually muted, and adat was reduced to forms of art, such as song, dance, dress, and architecture (Acciaioli 1985; Osawa 2022, pp. 175–178). Since the beginning of the decentralization and democratization era in 1998, the concept of “adat law community” has been revitalized and is regaining its legal position in terms of land rights and religious beliefs (Henley and Davidson 2007; Warman 2014). The concept of “local wisdom” also emerged in this context, and its enshrinement in law is a powerful symbol of the local voices that were oppressed during Suharto’s centralized regime; thus, in some ways, it embodies the zeitgeist of today (Li 2001). Local wisdom should not be applied as an analytical tool devoid of this context, however. To do so would not only fail to withstand the validity and value of academic research, but it would also fail to accurately comprehend and document locals’ voices and their world. We can see academic approaches that ignore such context as ideological idealism and a version of “ideological populism” (Olivier de Sardan 2005, p. 9).

I do not intend to claim that all applications of local wisdom are inadequate. Use of it by specific development and conservation programs might empower locals who have had to struggle with the “top-down” imposition of centralized or global knowledge (especially during Suharto’s centralized regime), and thus relativize the supremacy of centralized or global knowledge. In specific contexts, it might also promote the participation of locals. It has proven to be particularly valuable when deployed by locals themselves, or their agents (such as NGOs), or as a legal and ethical concept to correct social inequality and resource exploitation. It should also be positively evaluated that, through the use of local wisdom in the environmental law, the Indonesian government has attempted to recognize local diversities and contexts.

However, adopting “local wisdom” as an analytical concept is unsuitable in academic research. Without using the ambiguous buzzword, academic studies can analyze the problems in peatland areas, the traditional practices and knowledge, and locals’ contributions, which can serve to enhance understanding and mitigate those problems. The powerful ideological idealism of the concept risks narrowing researchers’ attention and preventing adequate consideration of local realities, leading researchers to misunderstand local situations and miscommunicate with local people. This results in formulating less effective development plans and environmental programs.

6.4 Practical Limitations of Local Wisdom in Solving the Peatland Problem

Here I return to analysis based on the case of Rantau Baru, through which I would like to elucidate the peatland problem in Riau and specify the difficulties in applying a local wisdom approach to it. I was initially hesitant to seek local wisdom in Rantau Baru because of the limitations of the local wisdom approach at a theoretical level and its disconnect with the realities of the field situation. Again, the local wisdom approach in the majority of academic studies is adopted based on an uncertain assumption that (1) locals have lived in and around peat environments continuously since before the increase in peatland fires, (2) their traditional peatland use is sustainable, and (3) their knowledge can be applied to finding a solution to the peatland problem. The deficiencies in these assumptions are easily observable in the field. I would like to discuss these in turn by focusing on the limits of tradition, the externality of peatland, and the trans-locality of the problem.

6.4.1 Limits of Tradition

I have described the limited peatland use in Rantau Baru in Chap. 3 (Osawa and Binawan) and at the beginning of this chapter. Although villagers have lived at the edges of peatlands at least for several centuries and peatland has been recognized as part of village territory, it was difficult to access and use. It was less an area used for livelihoods and more of a hinterland, the boundaries of which are designated by the Adat Melayu Petalangan (see Chap. 3). Villagers have used peatland for oil palm plantations for only two decades. Rantau Baru is not an exceptional case, and this pattern of peatland use is relatively standard in Riau. Limited use of peatland can also be attributed to the rich sediment available on the riverbanks where people live. According to our questionnaire survey in 2020, of the 107 respondents who lived in the main settlement of Rantau Baru (on the riverbank), 89 people (or 83%) could distinguish peat from sediment soils. Among those 89 people, 27 (or 30%) had worked in the peatland during the previous year. While the number of the people working in peatland is rather limited even today, the number must have been much smaller several decades ago, when villagers mainly worked in swidden fields on the riverbanks and the hinterlands were covered by thick forests (Osawa and Binawan, Chap. 3).

Several field workers who investigated peatlands in Riau before or just after the expansion of oil palm and acacia plantations note that peatland is not suitable for producing crops or living, causing people to depend on river trade that links downstream and upstream areas, gathering forest products (predominantly, timber logging) in hinterland forest, and fishing in the rivers (Abe 1993; Furukawa 1994; Masuda et al. 2016; Momose 2002).Footnote 13 Furukawa (1994) characterizes land use among Riau Malays living in lowland areas as a “culture of transit,” in which people do not accumulate or maintain a base for life in a fixed location, but rather use resources in transient ways. In Kapuas District, Central Kalimantan, the Ngaju Dayak use hinterland peat forest only for collecting forest products such as timber and rattan, while living on the riverbanks and cultivating agricultural crops on the sediment soils (Lubis 2013, pp. 8–17).

It is noteworthy here that the term “gambut,” which means “peat” in Indonesian, originally comes from the language of Banjar Malays in South Kalimantan Province and was introduced to Indonesian in the 1970s (Noor 2010). Banjar Malays, who live in the coastal areas of the province, traditionally used some of their low marshland as rice paddies using tidal irrigation and since the 1920s they have greatly expanded the use of the land for rice cultivation (Noor and Jumberi 2007). The Banjar Malays employ traditional techniques to use peatland without extensive drainage of the swampy peatlands (Hidayat 2000; Noor 2010; Noor and Jumberi 2007). However, such techniques are not found everywhere. Indeed, in Riau, peatlands, for the most part, have not been actively used and local knowledge of peatland is rather limited.

These facts cast doubt on the assumption that local people have used peatland sustainably for generations and exhibit the limit of attempts to treat traditional land use as a prescription for the peatland problem. The degradation and great fires were primarily caused by the logging and drainage of peatlands by national and international companies supported by government policies (Mizuno et al. 2016). What is essential to achieve peatland restoration, then, is not adopting or applying local traditional peatland uses based on the assumption that they are sustainable or include innovative methods. Such an overestimation of local wisdom could bias researchers and hinder understanding and communication with the locals. Rather, it is essential to create new knowledge through communication among all the stakeholders based on a detailed understanding of local knowledge, practice, and history, which BRG’s DPG program has tried to document, as mentioned above.

6.4.2 Recognitions of Space and the Externality of Peatland

Related to the history of peatland use in Rantau Baru, the assumption of local wisdom also reveals differences between locals and non-locals in the epistemology of the landscape and the use of space. Before the area began suffering from frequent fires during the mid-1990s, the landscape of Rantau Baru consisted of the rivers, riverbanks as living space, and the hinterland forests covered by thick peat soil (Osawa and Binawan, Chap. 3). These spaces were recognized as different and each had their own distinct uses.

According to Griven H. Putera, a novelist born and raised in Rantau Baru who writes about Malay personality and landscape, and UU. Hamidy, a local anthropologist in Riau with extensive knowledge of Malay cultures, the word “peat” (gambut or gambui)Footnote 14 does not appear in any of the old Malay poetry (pantun) in Riau that they have read or heard. Instead, they frequently see the terms “forest” (utan) and “swamp” (rawang; awang) referring to the peat environment. Although they did not know that the term “gambut” came from the language of Banjar Malays, they agree with the assessment that the expressions gambut or gambui were introduced to Riau Malays during the last several decades, and that prior to this, the words “forest” and “swamp” were used to refer to the peat environment (personal communication). The limited use of the peatlands among Riau Malays throughout their history supports this view. Given that Riau Malays in rural areas often contrast “settlement” (kampung) with “forests” (utan), it is clear that they recognize the peat environment as a distinct geographical space outside their settlements. That is, in the local worldview, peatland is external to their territory, in contrast with riverbank areas, which villagers recognize as living space. While they have occasionally accessed peatlands to obtain resources, peatlands were only opened by modern hydrological technology and repeated fires during the last few decades. Now that the peatlands are accessible, local people hope the land can contribute to raising their standard of living. To that end, some Rantau Baru villagers have planted oil palms on the land and some have sold or will sell the land, while others maintain the space as ancestral land (see Osawa and Binawan, Chap. 3). Their recognition of peatland space can thus be characterized by its recent economic potential and externality from settlement areas, not as an area for sustaining the essential part of traditional livelihoods.

This externality makes it difficult to expect solutions to the peatland problem to come from villagers’ autonomous efforts, which the application of local wisdom is expected to facilitate. For the villagers, peatland is not an essential part of their life, but rather an additional space, to which they cannot invest much capital and labor. Through the statistical analysis of Willing to Pay (WTP), Prasetyawan (Chap. 9) reveals that the villagers pay more attention to the environment of the riverine space than that of the peatland. In addition, while those who have a higher education level can comprehend peat conservation policies and are relatively interested in peatland, around 54% of villagers only have a primary level education and have a limited interest in peatland (Prasetyawan, Chap. 9). Hasegawa (Chap. 8) finds that although the village office provides it with financial support, the village fire prevention group (Masyarakat Peduli Api, MPA) was inactive due to a lack of social cooperation. Behind this rejection of cooperative efforts to prevent fires, we see a lack of motivation to participate in activities to protect the hinterland peatlands, which do not directly contribute to livelihoods. If peatlands were significant to their livelihoods, villagers would likely try to protect the area regardless of individual interest.

Expecting community-directed efforts of villagers or extracting a part of knowledge and practice from them is not an effective way to solve peatland problems. Instead, it is necessary for researchers to interrogate villagers’ aspirations and exchange epistemologies of environment and landscape over extended periods of time. This process can be summarized as a sharing of knowledge. Knowledge sharing is not just an action to “educate” locals in accordance with scientific knowledge and government policy (see also Safitri 2020, p. 208). It is equally essential that researchers learn from locals about local realities and perspectives (see Ingold 2018, pp. 1–25; Lubis 2005). This mutual education process naturally takes a long time and requires close communication, but it allows for knowledge to be shared effectively, together. Ultimately, it can also promote villager cooperation with and participation in any prevention and restoration activities that are established.

To date, BRG has tried to communicate and share knowledge with villagers by dispatching a facilitator to a village for a long period through the DPG program. However, this has not worked well in Rantau Baru. According to the villagers, a DPG program facilitator visited the village in 2019, but only occasionally to ask them questions and investigate the village situation, not to socialize or educate, objectives emphasized in the program.Footnote 15 While a few villagers communicated with the facilitator, most villagers did not know about the program at all. The results of our questionnaire survey in 2020 confirms this, as almost all respondents had little or no experience of peatland restoration education or socialization activities.Footnote 16 As the DPG program is still ongoing, it is difficult to fully assess its efficacy (see Hasegawa, Chap. 8). However, studies to date imply that the facilitation of communication has not been progressing as planned in other villages as well (Ananti 2020; Susanto 2020).

6.4.3 The Trans-Locality of the Problem

Finally, the most significant deficiency of applying a local wisdom approach to the peatland problem is that it is not a problem that is caused or that can be solved by the local communities alone. Interaction with and action by various stakeholders beyond the local community are required. The lands that are degraded and host frequent fires are not lands that Rantau Baru villagers have used. They are lands on the margins of their village, downstream of industrial oil palm plantations, and that have been or will be sold to companies and urban residents (Banawan and Osawa, Chap. 10). This means that the villagers have played, at most, only a small role in their degradation.

Identifying and highlighting local wisdom in academic papers and media comes down to attributing the solution (and, at worst, the cause) of this trans-local problem to the local communities. This evokes the impression among urban residents that because the peatland problem is happening in rural areas, it should be solved by the locals. If the main issue was improving the local standard of living, peatland degradation may well be recognized as a problem of the local areas. However, the peatland problem is an environmental problem with which many stakeholders are essentially concerned. The companies and private owners in the cities are significantly related to the causes, and peatland fires most often happen outside the zone of everyday life for villagers. Focusing on local wisdom may distract us from unearthing the roots of the problem and impose primary responsibility for solving the problems back on the locals.

Therefore, to solve the peatland problem, it is not necessary to highlight local wisdom, which may ostracize locals from non-local sectors, but rather to promote cooperation and the sharing of knowledge among the various sectors involved in and impacted by the problem. It is particularly necessary to link the problem with non-locals. Ultimately, establishing and stimulating a network of knowledge and, if possible, cooperation among local and non-local sectors must be paramount in seeking solutions.

6.5 Concluding Remarks

Investigating local knowledge and practice is undoubtedly essential for mitigating and solving peatland degradation and fires. Such investigation provides researchers with a richer understanding of locals’ realities, which in turn enhances meaningful communication with them and the formulation of effective restoration plans.

However, many academic studies in recent years have adopted a local wisdom approach to such investigation and to the peatland problem in general. By labeling specific knowledge and practices as “local wisdom,” they seek to discover innovative or “grassroots” methods to solve the problem. This approach, like the IK approach, has many deficiencies. “Local wisdom” leaves questions about historical continuity and interaction with outsiders unanswered, and it allows outsiders to identify something as local wisdom without adequate consideration of local contexts. The approach can therefore lead to misunderstanding locals’ knowledge and practice, reinforce the boundary between scientific and local knowledge, and ostracize locals from non-local sectors. In terms of addressing the peatland problem, it restricts understanding of the societies living near the peatlands and the peatland problem itself, which risks limiting responsibility for the problem to local people and agencies. These deficiencies are manifested in the ideological idealism that the concept embodies. Local wisdom gives researchers the illusion of a static existence among locals, despite the dynamism of local knowledge and practice that is a result of interaction and communication with others.

To overcome these deficiencies, instead of local wisdom, researchers should focus on the interaction and transfer of knowledge among various stakeholders related to the problem. On a more practical level, what is needed is an approach that makes it possible for stakeholders to negotiate among themselves over a long period and that simultaneously facilitates continuous communication and cooperation among them, mainly across local and non-local divides. At this practical level, improved understanding of the locals’ situation will facilitate continuous, interactive communication and cooperation.

Finally, I would like to reaffirm the significance of knowledge sharing. In the process of knowledge sharing, researchers not only transmit their knowledge based on scientific procedures to the locals, but they also must be educated by local people about the complex contexts and diverse realities of each case. These interactions have the potential to transform researchers’ perspectives and achieve fruitful communication and cooperation. The potential of knowledge sharing clearly illuminates the invalidity of circumscribing knowledge or wisdom to locals alone in addressing the problem of peatland restoration.