The Political Economy of Indonesia’s 1997 Forest Fires (original) (raw)

Hazy Days: Forest Fires and the Politics of Environmental Security in Indonesia,

The Indonesian “haze” that engulfs Southeast Asia is a result of the burning of forests and has a detrimental effect on the health of millions of people. Indonesia is currently the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. In response to the dangers posed by forest fires to national and global environmental security, the then Indonesian president publicly declared a “war on haze” in 2006 and called for the use of all necessary measures to stop the deliberate setting of fires. Although his strong “securitising” rhetoric received much public support, it is yet to produce results. The Indonesian authorities have had little success in preventing fires or prosecuting the culprits. Indonesia thus appears to be a null case – that is, a case of an unsuccessful securitisation. We argue that this unsuccessful securitisation needs to be understood against the backdrop of Indonesia’s vast decentralisation process, which resulted in certain powers being devolved from Jakarta to the provinces. We find that it is the ability of local and regional elites (often entrenched in patronage networks with plantation owners) to curtail environmental policies which explains the continuation of forest fires. With regard to securitisation theory, our findings suggest that securitising moves and audience acceptance do not necessarily lead to the successful implementation of emergency measures. It appears that there are intermediate factors – in our case mainly linked to the nature of and the distribution of power within the political regime – that impact on the success of securitisation processes.

Conflict Of Interests Between Government and Private Sector in Indonesia Forest Fire

2016

Forest fires in Indonesia have taken a serious attention at both national and international forums.The paper argued that the inability of government to solve the on-going issue of forest fires is due to a conflict of interests between government and private sectors.For example, certain laws and regulations from central government to local government seem to be vague and contradictive to one another.In addition to wague laws, the way these laws and policies are implemented at the federal and local levels also indicate a clear divergent of policy directions. To make matters worst, private organizations that collobarate with government agencies locally or nationally to combat forest fires have their own interests to pursue.One way in which private plantation owners commonly do to reduce cost of planting new palm oil trees is through slash and burned.As a result, a combination of unclear and inconsistent policy directions along with relentless pursuit of private interests reveals no cle...

Forest and land fires, toxic haze and local politics in Indonesia

International Forestry Review, 2019

Forest and land fires are among the major catastrophic events that occur in Indonesia. They are a major cause of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. Their multiple sources are most diverse and root in nature and society. The immediate fire effects directly and the long-term landscape ecosystem degradations indirectly cause major and persisting and serious problems of public health and ecosystem service. Smoke haze from the forest and land fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan in 2015 caused significant environmental and economic losses in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. We describe the different types of land uses and land cover where fires and smoke haze took place, and how local politics have affected fire use from 2001 to 2017. We calculated hot spots from satellite imageries as proxies for fire occurrences and applied regression analysis to understand the link between fire and local politics in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The results show that the greatest frequency of hot spot...

THE INDONESIAN FOREST FIRES AND THE MAINTENANCE OF THE 120191211 42741 1xp20wd

2019

Indonesia is one of the leading producers of haze at an alarming rate in Southeast Asia and it is known to be a phenomenon that has been going on for decades. Economic growth is important to developing states but how much of their land are they willing to exchange for this? This research argues that the principle of non-interference of the ASEAN in this context, the Indonesian forest fires, hinders the ability of the ASEAN to settle conflicts between the involved states. To support this argument, this research will be divided into three parts: (1) The effects of transboundary haze from Indonesia to its neighboring countries; (2) The ASEAN's effort and challenges-this will be discussed at length; and (3) Should Indonesia be held accountable for the transboundary environmental damage it is causing since it is affecting the Southeast Asian region negatively but as well as contributing to the worsening conditions of global warming itself?

Livelihoods, fire and policy in eastern Indonesia

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 2006

Indonesian legislation calls for a zero-burning policy. This approach to fire management is largely in response to significant negative impacts on the economy and the environment, not only in Indonesia but also the neighbouring region, that result annually from peat fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. In this context, the present paper investigates the local use and management of fire in Flores and Sumba islands in eastern Indonesia. Our appraisals show that people's livelihoods depend on fire to maintain grasslands and, therefore, that the national policy and legislation for zero-burning is inappropriate and needs to be revised. This follows from the fact that not all fires cause damage and are unwanted. Through a series of rapid rural appraisal interviews, we found that the fires in grasslands are often lit intentionally to maintain the grasslands that local people use to sustain a variety of livelihood activities such as cattle rearing, hunting and farming. Although fires can damage or destroy remnant dry forests in eastern Indonesia, in order to be effective, future policy formulations need to account for this human livelihood dimension and the geographic variation in fuels, climate and land use.

Slash and burn and fires in Indonesia: A comment

Abstract: A paper published in Ecological Economics [Varma, A. 2003. The economics of slash and burn: a case study of the 1997–1998 Indonesian forest fires. Ecological Economics 46,159–171] claims to show that slash and burn agriculture is socially inefficient and should be banned. However, its conclusions and recommendations are flawed. It defines slash and burn agriculture too broadly and misrepresents the nature and causes of the 1997–98 fires by virtue of attributing them entirely to slash and burn agriculture. Its economic assessment of the costs of the fires is also problematic. The recommendations to ban land-clearing fires and to provide alternative livelihoods to slash and burn farmers cannot be supported.

The last enclosure: smoke, fire and crisis on the Indonesian forest frontier

The Journal of Pesant Studies, 2022

Forest and land fires have been occurring in Indonesia since the 1970s, but within the last two decades the intensity of these fires and their effects on neighbouring countries has elicited high media attention and new political engagement. As a direct consequence, the Indonesian government has taken stern measures by prohibiting farmers from burning land and forests as part of their agricultural practices. Through the case of Indonesian Borneo, the paper explores how the haze crisis reinitiates old discourses of ‘backward' and ‘destructive’ agriculture and invigorates policies of agricultural modernisation and privatisation at the expense of traditional agrarian practices.