Saturday at Kuala Dua was a fun way to meet the teams and learn a bit about the research that goes on here. At 9 am, a cadre of six motorbikes and five team members swung by my hotel to pick me up and head for the field site. They gave me a helmet (a skimpy thing with no chinstrap) and we were off. Riding behind the driver on a motorcycle is exhilarating at first, with the wind blowing and the world quickly zipping by. After a while, however, I discovered that motorbike riding becomes physically tiring – sitting upright and gripping the bike with my legs takes some strength! The trail to Kuala Dua itself was a single dirt track, wet and slippery from rain, and I thought I was going to fly off the bike or get crushed beneath as we skidded our way along the path. Somehow we made it to the forest unscathed. I vowed to get a good helmet the minute we returned to the city.
Kuala Dua is a research site in a peat swamp forest. SIMPUR HUTAN (the NGO I am working with) bought a small area of land (300 x 400 meters) in the forest, and since buying the area most of the surrounding forest has been logged and then burned for agriculture. The SIMPUR forest is the only standing forest left in the area, and even it was heavily logged until purchased, so it contains very few mature trees. Last December, the burning got so bad that the NGO had to protect its land buy building firebreaks and spraying water on the fire using water pumps.
Peat swamp forest is not a very nice place to work. As you can imagine from the name, it is truly a swamp – walking through the forest is like walking in a massive puddle, and there is no thought of keeping your feet dry. The saving grace of the area was the lack of mosquitoes. Despite the wetness, I enjoyed getting out of the city and seeing green things and hearing birds. The trip to Kuala Dua was research-oriented; we were supposed to help collect litter from litter traps, which must be done every two weeks for carbon sequestration studies in the area. But another research assistant had finished the collections by the time we arrived, so we just walked around the forest and the teams explained the research design to me.
After our time in the forest, we went to the house of the field assistant who maintains the forest area. It is also built on peat swamp, and as far as I’m concerned is not a nice place to live. Because the peat subsides over time, the house is slowly sinking below the level of the peat swamp around it. You cannot walk around without getting your feet wet, and flies are everywhere. The area has been cleared and burned so there are no trees, and the waterway (dug by hand) contains water the color of tea.
On the plus side, we ate some amazing pineapple from a nearby farm. We dipped the pineapple in a mixture of salt and fresh red pepper, so it was sweet and salty and hot all at the same time. After plenty of time hanging out at the house, it looked as if it was going to rain so we hopped on the bikes and drove back to
My friends dropped me at the hotel and said they would return at
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