Peatlands development potency for sago cultivation in Papua

Abstract Papua has around 3.7 million ha peatlands but still less than 1% has been used for agriculture because it is in the form of a swamp forest or in an abandoned condition. This island also has sago forests covering an area of 1.02 million ha which covers 90% of the sago area in Indonesia. Apart from being a staple food for coastal communities and playing a role in peatland conservation, sago in Papua also has important social, economic and cultural values. However, due to the pressure of the need for infrastructure development, the area of sago in Papua decreasing and has decreased by 62.5% over 4 years from 2017 to 2021. This paper analyses the potential and use of peatlands for sago development in Papua and reviews the availability of cultivation technology. Data are collected from various sources especially journals, the relevant data are rolled into one, compared and interpreted to get strong conclusions according to the objectives. Several primary sources mention that the distribution of peatlands in Papua are at Mappi, Membramo Raya, Asmat, Mimika, Sarmi, Boven Digoel, Tolikara, Bintuni Bay, South Sorong, Sorong, Kaimana, Nabire, Jayapura, Jayawijaya and Paniai. The characteristics of peatlands in the southern part of Papua are different from the northern part, which in northern the peatlands on top of the coral rocks and influenced by sea tides with a higher pH, cation exchange capacity and base saturation. Nonetheless, the two regions have varying depth level (0-400 cm) and decomposition (fibric-hemic-sapric). Peatlands has important role as carbon-water storage and protecting biodiversity. Utilization and protection of peatlands using paludiculture techniques through sago cultivation provides benefits from an economic, social and environmental perspective. The identification result showed 61 sago types are found spread across Papua. The sago cultivation technique using vegetative materials in form of the shoots are better compared to generative materials. Sago propagation uses two techniques, namely seeding in rafts and in polybags. Seeding in rafts produces higher seed survival compared to seeding in polybags because the water availability for supporting rooth and crown growth.