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Land, forest fires fact of life in seven provinces
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and and forest fires have been a fact of life in seven provinces across Indonesia for decades. But activists warn that new epicenters of forest fires may emerge in addition to the seven provinces.
Data from the Modis imaging sensor of the Terra and Aqua satellites compiled by environmental group Auriga Nusantara between 2001 and 2019 show that land and forest fires regularly occurred in seven provinces -- Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and Papua. These fires were mostly triggered by land clearance using the slash-and-burn technique and by dried up peatland, and exacerbated by dry seasons.
Each year, forest fires in Indonesia often started in Riau in January. In the province, fires mostly receded in March, before the second wave came -- usually between May and September.
Forest fires usually hit West Kalimantan between June and October, while Jambi, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra see them between July and October, and Papua between September and November.
“Most of [Indonesia’s forest fires] were in provinces that regularly recorded forest fires,” Auriga Nusantara’s director for data management, Dedy Sukmara, said recently.
Past fires also tended to occur in regions that had a significant number of peatland ecosystems, which are even more flammable when they dry out and are degraded. Auriga data showed that Jambi, South Sumatra and Riau saw the largest increase in the number of areas of burned peatland.
In Riau, 48,265 hectares of peatland caught fire last year, a 367 percent increase compared with the total peatland burned in the previous year. Fires in South Sumatra destroyed 47,334 ha of peatland in 2019, up by 566 percent from the previous year, and 22,891 ha of peatland in Jambi, a 1,136 percent increase compared with the previous year.
Dedy, however, warned about the possibility of three other provinces -- Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Kalimantan -- becoming new epicenters of forest fires. These provinces have recorded a growing number of incidents in forest fires in the last five years, amid increasing activities in the forestry and plantation sectors.
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) forestry expert Bambang Hero Saharjo criticized the government's forest-fire control efforts, which often focuses too much on mitigation rather than prevention.
“Fire prevention should be done before the dry season, but what usually happens is that authorities often start to get busy only when the fires are about to get out of control," he said.
Companies and local administrations in Sumatra were also lax in preventing forest fires, a 2014 study by the Environment and Forestry Ministry showed.
The study looked into six regencies and cities in Riau and 17 agroforestry companies, mostly also operating in the province. It found that only one local administration -- Bengkalis regency – was sufficiently compliant and none of the 17 companies followed proper procedures in conducting business relating to forests. Of the 17 companies, 12 were industrial forest concession (HTI) holders.
West Kalimantan Governor Sutarmidji said the province had recently issued a warning to 157 companies that caused forest fires and sealed 67 others. Local administrations under its jurisdiction have also sanctioned 20 companies for causing forest fires.
Last year, about 1.6 million ha of land and forest across the country were burned, the second-highest in the last five years after the massive 2015 fires that burned through roughly 2.6 million ha, according to Environment and Forestry Ministry data.
This year, 120,536 ha of forest were burned from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31.
Ministry land and forest fire control official Radian Bagiyono said that compared with last year, land and forest fires had been relatively manageable this year.
“There has also been a significant decrease in hot spots, which resulted not only from the wetter weather compared with last year, but also from local mitigation efforts. Local task forces have been working hard since February,” Radian said on Tuesday.
As a precaution against forest fires this year, the government has been using weather modification technology to create artificial rain mainly in Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra since March.
