T

he National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) has claimed that Indonesia has improved its capacity to deal with land and forest fires following the massive 2015 fires that affected even neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.

“Compared to previous periods, all indicators suggest improvements have been made to control this year’s forest and land fires,” BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference.

One of the indicators, Sutopo said, was the number of hot spots detected during the several months this year when forest and land fires broke out in at least six provinces across the country.

According to monitoring data collected by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, 2,400 hot spots had been detected as of October this year. Last year, a total of 3,563 hot spots were detected. Another survey conducted using a TERRA/AQUA satellite,
meanwhile, indicated a 47 percent decrease in hot spots from 3,628 in 2016 to 1,927 as of October 2017.

Sutopo said that with most regions already entering the rainy season, it was unlikely the number of hot spots would increase significantly in November and December.

Other indicators that demonstrated improvements in fire mitigation measures this year, Sutopo said, were the size of land degraded by fires, cases of respiratory problems, air pollution and the activities of people surrounding the hot spots.

BNPB data showed that 125,000 hectares of land had been burned by fires this year, a significant decrease from the figures of 2016 and 2015, which measured 438,000 ha and 2.61 million ha, respectively.

“The air pollution standard index [in provinces hit by fires] indicated a normal level. No cases of acute respiratory problems were recorded and citizens went about their daily activities as normal,” Sutopo said.

Sutopo also lauded moves by the governors of the six provinces hit by this year’s fires to “immediately issue an emergency status” when signs of danger were looming.

“No governor was late in issuing an emergency status, unlike during the 2015 fires,” Sutopo said.

In 2015, forest and land fires, which mostly occurred in Sumatra and Kalimantan, caused the deaths of 24 people and around half a million cases of acute respiratory infection.

The fires produced a noxious haze that not only affected regions in Indonesia, but also spread through neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, and cost around US$16.1 billion in water resource damage, health expenses, ecosystem restoration and vegetation destruction.

Environment and Forestry Ministry secretary-general Bambang Hendroyono said Indonesia was still in a “crisis” period of at least three years to ensure there would be no more forest and land fires as disastrous as in 2015.

Bambang said it was mainly mitigation strategies, like extinguishing efforts and the presence of early warning systems, that were to thank for the smaller scale of disasters this year.

“The most important thing, however, is restoration efforts [of forests and land degraded by fires]. We ask companies to be committed [to contributing to land restoration],” Bambang said on Tuesday.

Various data sets have shown that during the 2015 forest and land fires, 34 percent of hot spots, or equal to 6,181 of 14,459 hot spots, were detected inside the concession areas of timber and palm oil companies.

Indonesia has issued several policies on the restoration of land damaged by fires, such as the 2015 peatland conversion moratorium and four regulations on peatland restoration issued this year that basically obligate companies to make efforts to protect peatland.

One of the four regulations, the Environment and Forestry Minister Regulation No. 17/2017 on production forests, was, however, recently repealed by the Supreme Court. The regulation detailed, among others things, the technicalities of companies’ obligations to revise their work plans in order to comply with peatland protection measures.

Commenting on the ruling, Bambang said the ministry “accepts the Supreme Court’s decision” but said “we do not have only one regulation [to protect peatland].”

“It doesn’t mean companies will be free from their obligations to revise their work plans,” Bambang said, pointing to a 2014 regulation requiring such measures to be taken.

Experts have also suggested there are still many things left to be done to keep forest and land fires at bay.

Increasing awareness at the regional level, such as issuing bylaws on forest fire prevention measures, was also necessary to strengthen prevention measures, said Hery Purnomo, senior researcher at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor.

“We cannot rely on Jakarta only,” said Herry.

Each region, Herry said, presented different challenges when it came to increasing awareness of fire prevention, adding that currently Jambi was the only province in Indonesia that had issued a bylaw on forest fire prevention measures.