Indonesia’s Forest Fire and the Southeast Asian Haze
Transboundary air pollution is not news to Southeast Asians. The Southeast Asian Haze is large-scale transboundary air pollution that occurs regularly between April and October. The haze issue severely affects countries in the region such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
The haze mainly arises during the dry season, which creates fire-prone conditions that allow fires to spread extensively. Although the occurrence of forest fire has been reducing after 2016, the forest fires in Indonesia continues to spread a thick haze in Malaysia and Singapore, posing a significant health threat to people in the region. The spikes in Malaysia’s Air Pollution Index (API) and Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) correlate with the trend of Indonesia’s forest fire occurrence, increasing during the dry season. Although forest fires are the cause of the transboundary haze, the spread of the haze is dependent on other climate conditions such as wind speed and direction. For example, in the third quarter of 2016, despite the high occurrence of forest fire in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore did not witness an increase in air pollution to a similar extent.
When we trace the forest fires to their originating provinces, we see that in the past seven years, most fires occurred on peatlands in the Kalimantan region, Riau, Sumatera Selatan and Papua. On most occasions, the main causes for these fires are commonly pointed towards land-clearing activities undertaken for timber and agriculture. Roughly half of these fires are located on land managed by oil palm, timber, and logging companies.[i] Fire is currently still the most cost-effective method to clear land for agriculture. Fire is able to clear leftover plant material and pest, and the resulting ash can neutralize the acidic peat soil. While using machines and chemical may cost up to 200 USD per hectare, using fire cost only 5 USD per hectare.[ii]
However, it is difficult to pinpoint a specific dominant cause of the fire in a particular site. Some common direct causes of fires include using fire as a tool for clearing, an aggression tool in land disputes, accidental or escaped fires, or fire caused during resource extraction. Other factors may promote the occurrence of forest fires, including such as but not limited to land disputes, forest degradation, economic incentives, population dynamics, and inadequate firefighting and management capacity.[iii] Most forest fires occurred in peatlands, areas with high organic material concentration. Its high carbon content makes it susceptible to burning.
The greatest threat of haze is towards public health. The Southeast Asian haze has been linked to various cardiovascular and respiratory conditions (see our previous article here). The recurring haze also affected the regional economy, especially regional tourism during the period. The challenge in preventing new fires and haze depends on accurate concession information. Despite the effort lead by the Global Forest Watch, Indonesia’s data capturing infrastructure still lags when it comes to providing up-to-date concession information. Discrepancies between geographical data from the Indonesian government and local landholders also makes it difficult to identify the entities liable for causing forest fires.[iv] The Sustainable Use of Peatland and Haze Mitigation in ASEAN (SUPA) is currently working on improving peatland management across Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Lao DPR and Myanmar. The project focuses on the capacity development of Non-State Actors in sustainable peatland management to reduce the risk of forest fires and reduce transboundary haze.[v]
[i] Alisjahbana, A. et al, Indonesian Fires Bring More Haze to Southeast Asia, World Resources Institute Insights, March 2014, https://www.wri.org/insights/indonesian-fires-bring-more-haze-southeast-asia.
[ii] Helena Varkkey (2013) Patronage politics, plantation fires and transboundary haze, Environmental Hazards, 12:3–4, 200–217, DOI: 10.1080/17477891.2012.759524
[iii] Dennis, R.A. et al. (2005) Fire, People and Pixels: Linking Social Science and Remote Sensing to Understand Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in Indonesia. Hum Ecol 33, 465–504. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-005-5156-z
[iv] Greig, J., Seeing Through the Southeast Asian Haze, Australian Outlook, Aug 2016, https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/seeing-through-the-southeast-asian-haze/.
[v] Visit the project page at https://wri-indonesia.org/en/our-work/project/sustainable-use-peatland-and-haze-mitigation-asean-supa.
