The Riparian Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical Agriculture (RERTA) Project started in August 2016. It is experimentally assessing the potential for restoring forest in riparian margins in established oil palm plantations during the replanting process. All sampling is carried out at three different distances from the river: (i) within the riparian margin (immediately adjacent to the river), (ii) adjacent to the riparian margin (50m from the river), and (iii) deep within the oil palm landscape (>500m from the river). We also established monitoring plots to sample aquatic ecosystems in the river itself, both upstream and downstream of the restoration area, for assessment of the treatments on river conditions.
Treatments include:
1) No restoration, replanting of young oil palm to river margin
2) No restoration, maintenance of 50m mature oil palm buffer
3) Enrichment planting in 50m buffer, clearance of mature oil palm to river margin
4) Enrichment planting and maintenance of mature oil palm in 50m buffer.
Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up. Each treatment is replicated six times across the plantation landscape on rivers over 5 metres wide.
RERTA enrichment plants one year after clearance and treatment implementation.