Between restoration and deforestation the politics of peatland restoration in neoliberal Indonesia

This research explores the impacts of ‘development’ through the example of how restoration takes place on the world's largest tropical peatlands. I examine the character of the contestation that has taken place in the governance of Indonesia's peatlands, from the Suharto New Order to the Reform era. Indonesian peatland is becoming an active force in the production and reproduction of contested meanings of statecraft and development. It becomes an arena and a testing ground to observe the relation between the state, capital and society. Using the lenses offered by Gramsci and Poulantzas, I examine the social formations that lie behind contestation. I argue that the restoration is the result of social relations from various social forces that are never static and homogenous, let alone class determined. This research uses political ecology and political economy approaches and attempts to understand the underlying political processes of peatlands restoration. It explains that the processes are never neutral but highly political. In particular, I demonstrate that the actors responsible for the restoration of the peatlands are powerless and incapable of answering to the people's problems and the ecological damages they face. Restoration, in fact, goes hand in hand with the persistent desire for accumulation by large-scale monoculture practices. As a result, Indonesian peatlands are over-governed and hyper-politicized, but the aspiration of the peat villagers is nowhere in the debate.