B I O D I V E R S I T A S ISSN: 1412-033X Volume 7, Nomor 2 April 2006 Halaman: 154-158 ♥ Correspondence address: IPB Campus at Darmaga, Bogor 16680 PO.BOX 168, Bogor 16001, West Java, Indonesia, Tel. +62-251-421929. Fax.: +62-251-621256 e-mail:saharjo@indo.net.id Domination and Composition Structure Change at Hemic Peat Natural Regeneration Following Burning; A Case Study in Pelalawan, Riau Province BAMBANG HERO SAHARJO ♥ , ATI DWI NURHAYATI Forest Fire Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor 16680. Received: 15 July 2005. Accepted: 19 December 2005. ABSTRACT Biomass burning is the burning of the world’s living and dead vegetation, including grasslands, forests and agricultural lands following the harvest for land clearing and land-use change. One of the important information needed following this biomass burning is how long the burnt forest or land can be recovered, and how worst the changing occurred. Repeated burning occurred at the same place trend to clean the vegetation which leads to have the land with lower number and quality of species left. The research objective is to understand the vegetation changing following peat fires in the sapric peat type at the land preparation using belong to the local community located in the Pelalawan district, Riau province, Indonesia during the dry season in the year 2001. Before burning, logging, slashing, drying and burning the site was dominated by Uncaria glabrata at seedling stage, Ficus sundaica at sapling stage, Ficus sundaica at pole stage and Stenochlaena palustris at understorey. After logging, slashing and followed by 4 weeks drying then continued by burning with high flame temperature range from 900-1100 o C, it had been found that 3-months following burning the site was dominated by Uncaria glabrata at seedling stage and Nephrolepis flaccigera at understorey while 6-months following burning the site was dominated by Parastemon uruphyllus at seedling stage and Erechites valeriantifolia at understorey stage. © 2006 Jurusan Biologi FMIPA UNS Surakarta Key words: peat fires, peat type, flame, natural regeneration, human. INTRODUCTION Forest management and land use practices in Sumatra and Kalimantan have evolved very rapidly over the past three decades (Scweithem, 1998). Commercial use of forest resources and forest lands was very limited up to and including the middle decades of this century. This changed dramatically when forestry basic law 1967. Millions of hectares of forest land where awarded as timber concessions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, leading to a timber boom in Sumatra and Kalimantan that changed the landscape of these two islands over a period of two decades. The government policies and procedure for allocating and supervising timber concessions were deeply flawed and riddled with corruption, leading to severe impacts on forest ecosystems, biodiversity and forest dwelling peoples. Poor logging practices resulted in large amounts of waste would left in the forest, greatly elevating fire hazard. Failure by the government and concessionaires to protect logged forests and close old logging roads led to and invasion of the forest by agricultural settlers whose land clearances practices increased the risk of fire. Logging activities have greatly increased both fire risk and hazards (Mackie, 1984). Access roads opened up the forests to both immigrant and local people for making field (Wirawan, 1993). By opening up the forest canopy, logging activities have greatly stimulated the growth and accumulation of plant biomass near the ground. Additional dead biomass is also provided by deformed logs and branches left behind by loggers. The failure of the rainy season to arrive on time, as was the case in late 1982, prolonged dry season, dried this plant biomass and then helped the fires started by shifting cultivators in September or October to spread wildly unchecked for several months until heavy rain fall in May 1983. As a result, 70% of the burned forest in East Kalimantan occurred in the logged- over forest areas (Wirawan, 1993). When logging companies enter into a new area, they automatically bring with them the fires problem. They are opening up the forests and making them more susceptible to forest fires through road, logging waste, bulldozing through the stands and opening up the canopy and finally bringing in people as the source of fire (Schindler, 1998). Fire risk is increased dramatically by the conversion of material forests to rubber and oil palm plantations, and by the logging of natural forests, which opens the canopy and dries out the ground cover. Plantations are drier and trees are move every spaced than natural tropical moist forests, thus increasing the opportunities for fire to spread. Evidence also suggests that fires burned mostly easily in secondary forests that had already been disturbed through (frequently illegal) timber operations. Selective logging destroys much of the most undergrowth and the closed canopy that reduces the likelihood and impact of forest fires in natural forests (WWF, 1997).