 The peat swamp forests were being slowly cleared for small scale farming and plantations before 1997, but most of the original cover remained.In 1996 the government initiated the Mega Rice Project (MRP), which aimed to convert one million hectares of peat swamp forest to rice paddies.Between 1996 and 1998, more than 4,000 km of drainage and irrigation channels were dug, and deforestation started in part through legal and illegal forestry and in part through burning.