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A Season of Fire Tests Indonesia’s Efforts to Curb Deforestation
Indonesia is experiencing another bad fire season, with forests and peatlands burning across much of the country. The fires have forced schools to close, caused respiratory problems for an estimated million people and infuriated neighboring governments.
They have also cast doubt on the effectiveness of Indonesia’s recent efforts to reduce deforestation.
South China
Sea
Red areas show where any
fires have been detected by
satellites so far this year.
KALIMANTAN
PAPUA
SUMATRA
Java Sea
SULAWESI
INDONESIA
Jakarta
JAVA
Red areas show where any
fires have been detected by
satellites so far this year.
KALIMANTAN
PAPUA
SUMATRA
INDONESIA
SULAWESI
Jakarta
JAVA
KALIMANTAN
SUMATRA
INDONESIA
Jakarta
Red areas show where any fires have
been detected by satellites so far this year.
At issue is whether improvements seen in the past few fire seasons had more to do with the weather — 2019 has been warmer and drier in Indonesia than the past few years — and less with policy changes and better enforcement of environmental laws.
“We’ve been saying all along that there have been great, dramatic drops in deforestation in Indonesia,” said Frances Seymour, an expert on environmentally sustainable development and a fellow at the World Resources Institute, a research group based in Washington. While it was apparent that government efforts were important in reducing deforestation, she said, “now we’re in a dry year, which poses a more rigorous test.”
South China
Sea
MALAYSIA
Serian
ISLAND OF
BORNEO
Betung Kerihun
National Park
Singkawang
Muller
Mountains
Pontianak
Bontang
Samarinda
Mahakam
Delta
Indonesia
Balikpapan
Makassar
Strait
Palangkaraya
Sebangau
National
Park
Red areas show
where fires have
burned this year.
Meratus
Mountains
Sampit
Kualakapuas
Tanjung
Puting
National
Park
Green areas are
protected by law from
forest clearing.
Martapura
Banjarmasin
SUMATRA
Area shown
KALIMANTAN
Java Sea
PAPUA
Jakarta
South China
Sea
MALAYSIA
Serian
ISLAND OF
BORNEO
Betung Kerihun
National Park
Singkawang
Muller
Mountains
Pontianak
Bontang
Samarinda
Indonesia
Balikpapan
Palangkaraya
Red areas show
where fires have
burned this year.
Sebangau
National
Park
Meratus
Mountains
Sampit
Makassar
Strait
Kualakapuas
Tanjung
Puting
National
Park
Green areas are
protected by law from
forest clearing.
Martapura
Banjarmasin
Area shown
INDONESIA
Jakarta
MALAYSIA
Serian
Betung Kerihun
National Park
Singkawang
Bontang
Pontianak
Samarinda
Indonesia
Balikpapan
Palangkaraya
Red areas show
where fires have
burned this year.
Sebangau
National
Park
Sampit
Kualakapuas
Green areas are
protected by law from
forest clearing.
Banjarmasin
Area shown
INDONESIA
Jakarta
MALAYSIA
Serian
Betung Kerihun
National Park
Indonesia
Palangkaraya
Sebangau
National
Park
Sampit
Banjarmasin
Green areas are
protected by law from
forest clearing.
Red areas show
where fires have
burned this year.
Area shown
INDONESIA
Jakarta
Intact forests and healthy peatlands store enormous amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere, where it would contribute to global warming. A full accounting of the extent of deforestation in 2019 will not be known until next year, when satellite images can be analyzed to determine how much forest cover has been lost.
But, so far this year, the fire season has been the worst since 2015, when fires burned nearly six and a half million acres, caused more than $15 billion in economic losses and led to an air pollution crisis across the region.
According to Global Forest Watch, which analyzes data from remote-sensing satellites, nearly 70,000 fire alerts have been recorded this year, almost all of them since June, when the season began. As many as 3,000 fires were reported across the country on some days in September. Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, have been especially hard hit.
The number has fallen since then as some rain has arrived. The rainy season is expected to begin in full by the end of the month.
Most of the fires have been deliberately set to clear land, a practice that has been followed for centuries all over the world and continues because it is less costly than mechanical methods. In Indonesia, it’s done by both small farmers and larger landholders, including those who clear forests and drain peatlands for palm oil plantations.
But in dry conditions, fires can quickly spread out of control, leading to widespread destruction of forests and peat.
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Following the devastation of 2015, which occurred amid a strong El Niño that brought hot, dry weather to Indonesia, the government instituted reforms, including a stricter moratorium against forest clearing and a program to restore drained peatlands, which are highly susceptible to burning.
In the following years, loss of forest cover declined significantly. Indonesia was considered to have made such progress that this year Norway made a first payment to the government under a program in which developed countries pay developing countries to safeguard their forests and thus reduce carbon emissions.
Another El Niño occurred this year, although it was weaker than the one in 2015 and ended over the summer.
Arief Wijaya, senior manager for climate and forests with the W.R.I.’s Indonesia office, said that while there were more fires this year than the previous three years, there are indications that some government efforts have worked, especially in supporting local firefighting agencies. “The government is better prepared for tackling forest and peatland fires,” he said.
Ms. Seymour said that more transparency was needed within the Indonesian government to fight corruption in the process of approving land permits and to sort out conflicts that arise over land ownership.
But the resurgence of fires this year is also “an indicator there’s a need to not only do immediate response, but shift attention to making progress on the long-term drivers of deforestation,” she said. Among other things, this would involve addressing a change from large-scale land clearing by plantation owners to small-scale clearing by small farmers.
“It doesn’t mean that significant progress hasn’t been made,” Ms. Seymour added. “But you’ve got to keep your eye on the ball year after year.”
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Henry Fountain covers climate change, with a focus on the innovations that will be needed to overcome it. He is the author of “The Great Quake,” a book about the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. More about Henry Fountain
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