KUALA LUMPUR, – As forest fires raged in Indonesia six years ago, a thick, toxic smoke haze drifted across Southeast Asia that would lead to more than 100,000 premature deaths, destroy huge swathes of forest and threaten endangered orangutans.

In the aftermath, environmentalists and governments, both regional and local, demanded action from Jakarta, forcing a policy reset that last year helped the country achieve a fourth straight year of declines in deforestation.

Bimo Dwisatrio, a senior research officer at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), said the 2015 crisis was a political game-changer for forest governance under Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi.

The fires occurred just months after he was elected in 2014. “Jokowi took a bold step,” Dwisatrio told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, pointing to his move to merge the environment and forestry ministries.

At the time it was criticised by many conservationists, but has resulted in better aligned policies on conservation, forest fires and permits for commodities development.

Last year, tropical forest losses around the world equalled the size of the Netherlands, according to satellite monitoring service Global Forest Watch (GFW).

Green groups blame production of commodities like palm oil – used in everything from margarine to soap and fuel – and minerals for much of the destruction of forests, as they are cleared for plantations, ranches, farms and mines.

Cutting down forests has major implications for global goals to curb climate change, as trees absorb about a third of the planet-warming emissions produced worldwide, but release carbon back into the air when they rot or are burned.

In Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest tropical forests and also its biggest palm-oil producer, deforestation rates have bucked the worsening global trend.

Last year, the sprawling archipelago improved from third to fourth place in the GFW ranking for tropical forest loss, which amounted to about 270,000 hectares (667,000 acres), as forest protection policies, lower commodity prices and wetter weather eased pressures.

MORATORIUM MANDATE

After visiting some of the areas worst-hit by the 2015 fires, Widodo introduced more legislation to stop the development of old-growth forest.

The government renewed a moratorium on new conversion permits for primary forest and peatland – which had been extended since 2011 – before making it permanent in 2019.

In late 2018, Widodo imposed a temporary ban on new permits for palm plantations for three years.

Dechen Tsering, Asia-Pacific director at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said the restrictions on new clearance “have certainly been critical”, while falling palm oil prices may also have helped slow deforestation.

The establishment of an agency to restore more than 2 million hectares of damaged, carbon-rich peat has also been positive, said environment experts, who welcomed a recent expansion of its mandate to mangroves.

In addition, Widodo vowed to return 12.7 million hectares of forest land to indigenous people following a historic 2013 court ruling to lift state control of customary forests.

And the government last year issued an agrarian reform decree aimed at redistributing land and issuing titles on some 9 million hectares.

David Dellatore, director of conservation programmes for U.S.-based nonprofit Rainforest Trust, said those reforms were helping to alleviate poverty and encourage sustainable land use.

Forest-reliant businesses such as palm oil and pulp and paper companies have, meanwhile, adopted new industry-wide policies under pledges to phase out deforestation, worked with green groups, and invested in technologies to track supplies and prevent forest fires.

The global palm oil industry watchdog has adopted stricter rules for certification schemes to safeguard forests, while Indonesia also expanded its own sustainability scheme.

UNEP’s Tsering said there were still challenges, such as forest-clearing by small-scale producers for palm oil and other commodities, and conflicts over forest land between communities and businesses, which often lead to fires.

Green groups have warned of rising deforestation risks, from both food and palm oil projects, in Indonesia’s Papua province.

BRAZIL GAINS REVERSED

Despite those concerns, Indonesia’s conservation approach could help other countries now battling growing deforestation, like Brazil and Bolivia, forest experts said.

Success would hinge on enlisting the support of impoverished communities, said Rainforest Trust’s Dellatore.

“If one’s basic needs are not being met, it is unrealistic to expect conservation efforts that serve to limit development to flourish,” he said.

In the past, measures like those used in Indonesia had a positive impact on deforestation in Brazil, reducing it by 80%, he noted.

They included similar efforts to clean up supply chains, in this case for beef and soy, alongside increased law enforcement and firefighting.

From 2004 to 2012, Brazil was a leader in reducing deforestation in the Amazon and mitigating climate change, thanks to public policies and private measures, which it shared with Indonesia, said Dwisatrio.

“But it is clear from the case of Brazil how quickly such gains can be reversed through political instability,” he added.

VITAL CARBON SINKS

Last week, Widodo praised Indonesia’s slowing deforestation rates and mangrove restoration projects during the virtual climate summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Under the Paris climate accord, Indonesia has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 29% by 2030, a target that could rise to 41% with international support.

While progress on protecting forests will help achieve its emissions pledges, they will not be strengthened in an updated climate action plan due to be submitted ahead of a U.N. climate summit in November, officials have indicated.

UNEP’s Tsering said all countries, including Indonesia, would need to set their sights higher in protecting massive, irrecoverable carbon sinks like tropical forests and peatlands.

More than half of Indonesia’s emissions are related to deforestation, peatland degradation and fires, she noted.

“Without addressing these emission sources, Indonesia will not be able to meet its … (targets) under the Paris Agreement,” she added.

https://news.trust.org/item/20210429225418-ahvod/

SIAK, Indonesia, – Setiono Ono pauses his morning wildfire patrol near the northeastern coast of Sumatra island at a small timber dam between a logged area and an oil palm plantation.

Water the colour of charcoal is leaking out from the dam along a narrow canal cut to drain the surrounding peatland.

The dam, built by the local community here in the Siak regency of Riau province, is one of thousands of canal barriers constructed in recent years to protect Indonesia’s peatlands, seen as critical in the fight against climate change.

“We need to fix this,” said fire patrol leader Setiono, 40, before heading into the patchy forest with two other volunteers.

Peat accounts for about 3% of the world’s land surface, but peatlands store more carbon than all other terrestrial vegetation combined, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

When peatlands burn, they release carbon into the atmosphere, accounting for almost 6% of the annual carbon dioxide emissions fuelling global warming, the IUCN says.

Indonesia is home to more than a third of the world’s tropical peat, giving it a key role in safeguarding the carbon-rich ecosystem.

But in recent decades, its peatlands – 10 metres (33 ft) deep in places – have experienced rapid conversion into valuable commercial plantations to meet rising international demand for palm oil, pulp and paper.

That has helped lift small farmers out of poverty but also brought urgent environmental and public health risks.

Plantation trees fare poorly in drenched soil, so companies have dug thousands of kilometres of canals to drain off water.

But dissecting the landscape with these canals has dried it out and increased peatland fires, which smoulder underground for long periods and can often be doused only by heavy rain.

The threat is highest when climate patterns prolong Sumatra’s main dry season beyond September, as in 2015 and 2019.

In 2015, fires burned about 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) of land in Indonesia, an area 20 times larger than Los Angeles, about a third of it peat.

But in Setiono’s village, there have been no fires since 2017 – which many here attribute to the former illegal logger.

After leaving middle school as a teenager, Setiono spent almost a decade of his youth cutting down trees and dodging tigers and police in the peat forest he now looks after.

He suffered frequent injuries and was hospitalised after a chainsaw slipped and tore through his thigh. Eleven other illegal loggers he knew were jailed.

He guesses he felled more than 100 trees in the forest near the leaking dam.

“For me this is strong motivation,” said Setiono. “The bottom line is that I used to destroy nature.”

COMMUNITY SHIELD

Setiono now heads the Masyarakat Peduli Api (MPA), or “Fire Care Community”, for Rawa Mekar Jaya, a village on the north coast of Siak about 150 km (93 miles) west of Singapore.

Community fire initiatives began in Indonesia under pilot schemes in the early 2000s, before the government formally established the MPA programme in 2009.

At the peak of the 2015 fire crisis, state firefighters worked morning to night as power lines burned and schools closed for a month under a blanket of toxic haze.

“Everyone had respiratory infections, coughs, breathing difficulties,” Setiono told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A study by Harvard and Columbia universities indicated the 2015 air pollution could have caused 100,000 premature deaths.

Setiono heard about the community fire prevention programme that year and travelled to Pekanbaru, the provincial capital, for a month’s basic training.

Five years on, he has built one of Riau’s largest village fire brigades, with no dedicated funding.

Donated fire hoses and generators are stacked ready in a garden shed next to his red-brick bungalow.

Other equipment is stored a short drive away at the fire brigade’s office, surrounded by dark sumps and pineapple plants.

MPA members keep bees, using proceeds from honey sales to fund the community organisation.

“If there is a fire and smoke enters this village, then our children could become asthmatic,” said MPA volunteer and father-of-two Suroso Lilik, 37.

The group convenes every morning to check on the 16,800-hectare area it is responsible for.

Its 25 volunteers work in shifts, patrolling the river on a small barge and traversing degraded fields on foot.

“Our village is ours,” said Setiono. “If we don’t (do this), who else is there?”

https://news.trust.org/item/20201016070657-sjncd/