Peatland restoration

Forest fires become a seasonal phenomenon in Indonesia. The most severe forest fires in Indonesia started in 1997/98 which a total fire-affected land area of about 9.75 million ha. The policy was adopted to highlight the severity of the fire problem, the need for the government action to prevent the fires. The policy also concerned oil palm and timber plantation; along with, smallholder agriculture.

For policymakers, it is misleading to think about fires as a single problem. There are three main fire-related policy problems; smoke-haze pollution and carbon emissions, forest degradation and deforestation, and rural sector losses from escaped fires. The appropriated policies should address those three points.

Smoke-haze problem is the main fire-related policy problems because it attracted attention from neighboring countries. Peat fires were the major contributor to smoke-haze pollution and they were a major source of carbon emission.

The loss of forests is mainly a national problem because most people who got affected are mostly Indonesian.

Losses in rural sector might result from the escaped fires caused by agricultural or other activities. It is possible that this issue has received limited attention because the organisation concerned mainly with the forest and biodiversity.

The policy should also consider about the advantage of the fires; for example, the fire may reduce the cost of plantation clearing. Therefore, the policy addressing fire-related problem need to take both costs and benefits related to the use of fire into account. However, the costs depend on the consequences of the fires.

It is also mentioned that to address the policies to "fire-problem" is misplaced focus. To implement the policies that aim to focus on forest degradation and deforestation, policies should be directed at revising the land allocation processes. Moreover, there is a recommendation to keep people out of the forests to minimise fire risks.

The policies focus more on the impact of fires rather than the fires themselves. The Indonesian fire legislation views fires as problems that need to be avoided at all cost. Nevertheless, there is an argument claiming that there are different types of fires, and the policies need to recognize that not all fires are problematic like fires in the peat swamp forest.

POLICY MAKER'S

PERSPECTIVE

According to the analysis (Perthalia R,2015), forest fire experts were convinced that had the policy not been enacted, the 2014 forest would have burnt more areas and increased overall damage and losses. This means that even though the policies are not proved to be able to completely prevent forest fires, the experts thought the policy did limit the levels of damages and losses. Moreover they suggested that other elements of the policy could both be improved to reduce the fires, and be reevaluated to determine if they were really important elements.

It is also implied that if the government continues to perfect the policy, the cost of implementing the policy might not relevant compared to the benefit Indonesia will receive from having the policy place.

According to the interviews ((Perthalia R,2015), the plan of action is still in need of regular evaluation. This process is necessary because it ensures that each programs is well-defined in terms of its goal, clear methodology, and supported by detail instructions.

FIREFIGHTER'S

PERSPECTIVE

From the firefighter's interview, and local environmental activist, they claimed that the way the government responses to forest fires has been underwhelming. They also described the burnt forest and they mentioned the method of fighting peat fires is flooding water. They claimed that the layer of decomposed plants found in peatland could still be smouldering beneath the surface. If the underground fires were not well extinguished, the fires could be reignited.

A lot of water had been used to stop the fires; however, the very same spot was again covered by fires. The firefighters also mentioned the costs of other methods such as water-bombing. In my opinion, this might be the reason they thought that the peatland restoration program is very crucial to prevent the fires in the future.

PEATLAND

RESTORATION

"Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) was established on January 6, 2016 in order to accelerate the recovery of hydrological and vegetation of degraded peatland that causes by peat and forest fires"

Government regulation in Leiu of Law No.1 / 2016

Daniel Murdiyarso gives explanation about the use of peat depth gauges. CIFOR/Aulia Erlangga

Source :https://forestsnews.cifor.org/63392/peatland-restoration-efforts-key-to-mitigating-climate-change?fnl=#:~:text=Restoring%20peatlands%20with%20local%20communities,restoration%20effort%20is%20therefore%20crucial.

As Indonesia's peatland become a global concern because it has burnt in 2015, Indonesia has launched the project of restoring the degraded peatland. The president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, has initiated a National Peat Restoration Agency (BRG) in 2016. The main objective of the project is to restore 2.4 million peatland in Indonesia.