VEGETATION FIRES AND SMOKE HAZE IN INDONESIA – A CHRONIC PROBLEM
Ivan P. Anderson (formerly with the EU-Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project, Palembang). E-mail: ivan.anderson@virgin.net
Flooding today – fire, earthquake and volcanic eruptions tomorrow. Such is Indonesia’s environmental lot. Flooding may be today’s big media story but it is reliably predictable that fire and smoke, mainly the latter, will be in the national news before long, whether or not El Niño 2002 materialises.
However, when reporting does occur in Indonesia it is usually only after airports close because they are blanketed in smoke (e.g. Pekanbaru and Palangkaraya last year) or Singapore/Malaysia make official complaints to the Indonesian Government because of ekspor asap from peat fires in Sumatra.
What action is being taken to deal with this problem? In January, regional authorities (Governors and Bupati) in fire prone areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan were requested by the Vice President, as the Head of the National Disaster Management Coordinating Board, to prepare a comprehensive programme for controlling fires. They were also urged to take stern action and sanctions against those guilty of causing forest and land fires. At the international level, and after four years’ planning and drafting, the ASEAN Transboundary Haze Agreement will be signed in June to reaffirm a commitment among member countries to fight haze.
There is clearly agreement at the highest levels to address the problems that vegetation and peat fires cause. But unfortunately this rarely, if ever, filters down through the various levels of bureaucracy and vested interest that complicate Indonesian society to materialise as effective action on the ground.
Self-regulation within the agro-industrial sector is a way forward and formation of the Haze Prevention Group (www.hazeprevention.com)is the first serious attempt by some of the mainly pulpwood and oil palm companies to tackle the fires and haze that they are often accused of causing, although rarely prosecuted for initiating.
Using satellite data, mainly from NOAA and SPOT, detection and monitoring of vegetation fires and smoke haze affecting Sumatra and Kalimantan are now routine and highly effective procedures. In each year between the major drought and fire years associated with El Niño there are short periods of a few weeks when smoke haze events occur in Sumatra and Kalimantan. All these mini-haze events are associated with burning in peatland, whether forested or not, with Riau and Central Kalimantan being the provinces most seriously affected*.
Riau peat fires have been burning continuously since early January this year but are only now receiving attention in the local papers (Riau Pos, 9 February 2002 - Ribuan Hektare Hutan dan Kebun Musnah Terbakar. Api Terus Menjalar dan Mencemaskan (Thousands of hectares of forest and plantation destroyed by burning. Fire continues to spread and cause concern). The haze is affecting the towns of Dumai and Duri in Riau but not Malaysia/Singapore since this region is still under the influence of the North-East Monsoon. If the winds had been blowing from the opposite direction, as they will, starting about April, then the publicity would no doubt have been much greater.
Two lessons can be drawn from these relatively small but chronic fires that produce a great deal of smoke. (a) They should be tackled and suppressed in immediate response to initial detection and reporting by the monitoring agencies in Indonesia and Singapore and (b) if these mini-haze occurrences cannot be prevented (preferably) or controlled (other than by the onset of rain) then there is no hope when the next severe El Niño drought arrives. During El Niño years, the areas affected by severe drought are likely to include the peat-rich provinces of South Sumatra, Jambi and East Kalimantan – all very badly damaged by the wildfires of 1997-98.
Other points that have been made many times before but bear repeating are:
With respect to Sumatra, there are very few sizeable blocks of primary lowland forest left and nearly all of these are peat swamp forest in Riau and Jambi. As a reminder of their fragility after disturbance, some quarter million hectares of peat swamp forest subject over many years to HPH (Forest Concession Right) logging in South Sumatra Province were destroyed by fire during 1997. Apart from Berbak National Park, these last remnants of rain forest are unprotected. Since the dryland Dipterocarp forests of lowland Sumatra have more or less disappeared, the previously disregarded peat swamp forests in both coastal and inland locations have become the focus for logging (almost all illegal) and conversion to plantations – both activities are linked to fire occurrence in an ecosystem where fire under natural conditions is hardly known.
All the peat swamp forest in Riau and Jambi is under considerable pressure from smallholder migrant, large-scale commercial, the oil/gas industry and Government activities. Competition for access to land and forest resources is increasing. Most of the remaining primary forest has been earmarked by Government for conversion to estate plantations, mainly for industrial pulpwood.
Clearing and draining peat swamp forest for plantations, whether for Acacia sp. pulpwood, oil palm, coconuts or rice, may be an attractive financial enterprise in the short-term but there is little evidence that the results will be sustainable in the long-term, particularly on the scale at which it is being practised along the eastern seaboard of Sumatra. Unsustainable kinds of land use are behind most of the haze problems in Indonesia. These will continue until radical changes are made to the way peatland is managed.
Be sceptical of claims that it is just local people (the ‘slash and burn’ farmer) destroying the peat forest. Small-scale farmers sensibly avoid deep peat areas, unless they are put there as part of government schemes such as the now derelict Mega Rice Project in Central Kalimantan or, in the case of West Kalimantan, local government attempts to resettle displaced Madurese in peat swamp schemes. When the local community is involved, it appears to be a collaborative arrangement with estate companies based on a production-sharing agreement.