The survey before the first dam
Work in Riau began with a hydrological survey, not a planting target. On peat, the water table is the number that decides everything.
Riau holds some of the deepest peat in Sumatra. Where that peat is drained it keeps oxidising, releasing carbon whether or not a single tree is felled. That is why the programme's first job in the province was not planting. It was measuring.
Crews and forest management unit staff surveyed the canal networks and the depth of the water table across the working area before any dam was designed. The survey method is published alongside the results, so another party can check the work or repeat it.
On peat, the water table is the variable that matters.
What the survey decides
A dam in the wrong place moves water without keeping it. The survey shows which canals drain the most peat and where a block will hold, so the order of work follows the water rather than the calendar.
Canal dams built
Each of those dams is maintained by a village crew under a paid agreement, with maintenance written into the agreement rather than assumed.
