T

he year 2016 has been marked with progress in how the Indonesian government has managed the environment for economic development while at the same protecting it following the disastrous year for the environment that was 2015, when the country suffered from one of the worst forest fire seasons in its history.

Despite the progress, the government still has lots of homework in the environment sector next year, such as strengthening forest fire prevention efforts as the dry season is expected to return to normal in 2017 and redistributing customary forests to indigenous communities.

The beginning of the year saw President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo establish the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG), which aims to restore 2.4 million hectares of carbon-rich peatland damaged by fires that sent smoke across the region last year.

By restoring the damaged peatlands, the government is hoping to prevent the annual land and forest fires from reoccurring as most of them happen in fire-prone peat areas. While the agency has started preparing for its restoration work, the Environment and Forestry Ministry and the regional government have strengthened its fire prevention efforts. “The deforestation caused by the land and forest fires in 2015 was outstanding, but our management in 2016 has been able to reduce hotspots substantially so that there was no more haze,” Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar recently said.

She claimed the number of hotspots decreased by up to 92 percent in 2016, compared to 2015.

Despite the progress in managing forest fires, the minister acknowledged that she was still dissatisfied with the monitoring aspect of forest fires, something that would be addressed in 2017. “Looking ahead, we have to think how the [monitoring] system works,” Siti said.

By addressing the annual land and forest fires, Indonesia is hoping to strip its label as one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters and gain public confidence on its commitment to tackle climate change.

To show its climate change commitment, Indonesia ratified in December 2016 the Paris Agreement, which sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change effects by limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, into law. “So it’s clear [we are committed to tackling climate change] because since the end of 2015, we have been preparing ourselves to implement [the Paris Agreement],” said Siti.

While the government has put in some efforts to tackle deforestation and forest fires, Siti acknowledged that the country was still lagging behind in the renewable energy sector, key to fighting climate change.

“Our homework, which we haven’t worked on much, is renewable energy. We have done research but we haven’t tested it intensively. I am thinking maybe in 2017 we can look into solar energy through the photovoltaic method. That’s our potential,” she said. Photovoltaics is a method that generates electric power by using solar cells to convert energy from the sun into a flow of electrons.

The ministry is also planning to intensify its effort in dealing with rampant land disputes involving indigenous communities by redistributing millions of hectares of hutan adat (customary forests).

The redistribution of the forests is long overdue as indigenous communities have long been fighting for their land rights, with no significant follow-ups to the court’s ruling until now.

Next year, Siti said she was also looking into the possibility of developing national parks into tourism spots.

“Our tourism agencies have achieved a lot but I’m not happy yet because our national parks should have been more prominent,” she said.