Theme 1. Managing Smoke

Posters on Managing Smoke

Techniques of Zero Burning in Land Clearing for the Establishment of Plantation Agriculture: Malaysia's Experience

by Mahmud Abd. Wahab¹, Jamaluddin Nasir², Ramli Majid³ and Yew, F. K.⁴

In the past, for the establishment of plantation crops, it was a common practice to burn remnants of trees after felling prior to land preparation. Such action often carried out during the dry months, resulted in the emission of large quantities of total suspended particles into the atmosphere and with excessive and prolonged burning, hazy conditions resulted. Currently, in Malaysia, the zero burning technique has been developed and adopted as a standard policy not only in replanting but also for new planting from jungle or logged-over forests.

The main operations of zero burning involves firstly, the extraction of saleable and useable timber. This is to reduce the amount of residual wood which may take years to decompose and also, to enable the residual wood to be used as temporary bridges or rollers to strengthen the foundation of roads in peat areas. This is then followed by land preparation with the operations differing between flat, mineral and peat soils and hilly and undulating areas. For peat areas, to facilitate land preparation operations, excess water is removed. Natural streams passing through the land, are cleaned-up, widened and deepened and additional outlets and perimeter drains, constructed with special care taken to avoid rapid drying.

Soon after extraction of the timber, road and drain constructions are done with lining carried out to determine the location of all roads, main drains and subsidiary drains. In most cases, these are done simultaneously with blocking of the fields, felling and stacking. Base lines are then pegged to earmark the planting rows and avenues for the stacking of residual timber and wood debris. During felling, trees are pushed and uprooted and cut into reasonable sizes before stacking them in interrows at every two palm rows.

In peat areas, additional work in terms of compaction is carried out to avoid drastic shrinkage of the soil after planting. In hilly and undulating areas, after extraction of useable timber, main and feeder roads are constructed with the road system properly planned to ensure sufficient access. The density of contour terraces are predetermined and prelining for terrace construction are also carried out. During the construction of terraces, all debris are pushed and stacked between terraces with large obstructing timber or logs along the terraces, cut into smaller pieces.

Once the stacking is completed, legume cover crop is then established in the interrows and adjacent to the stacking row to encourage quick coverage over the debris, thus enhancing the decomposition of the debris. Once these operations are completed, lining, ploughing and harrowing which are confined only in the planting rows and in flat areas on mineral soils, together with holing and planting operations are then carried out.

It is obvious that zero burning of land clearing is an environmentally friendly technique which helps safeguard the environment from air pollution. The technique allows recycling of plant nutrients through the decomposition of wood residues. Large quantities of organic matter are returned to the soil thus restoring and improving soil fertility. On hilly areas, loss of valuable top soil is minimised. The absence of open burning eliminates loss of soil moisture. Fallow period of planting oil palm is also reduced and coupled with savings on burning, restacking and reburning as practised in clean clearing method, zero burning therefore provides economic advantage.

Footnote_______________

¹ Forest Research Institute of Malaysia

² Golden Hope Plantations Berhad

³ Mentiga Plantations Berhad

⁴ Malaysian Rubber Board