Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has called for tougher laws and sanctions against people and companies responsible for forest and land fires, describing deliberate slash-and-burn clearing as “ecological terrorism” as the country battles its worst wildfire season in 11 years.Prabowo, who chaired a limited meeting on disaster management on Wednesday, said there should be zero tolerance for individuals or corporations found responsible for starting fires.He asked the state secretary and the minister of law to review existing legal sanctions and consider strengthening them. He also suggested that the House of Representatives consider classifying such offences as “ecological terrorism”.Indonesian police have launched 219 criminal investigations linked to the fires, with 162 people named as suspects, police official Mohammad Irhamni said on Thursday.Police are also investigating 95 companies, although Irhamni did not specify how many of them are suspected of criminal offences.Prabowo has also instructed regional governments to immediately remove exemptions that allow smallholders to use fire to clear small plots of land. He directed police to pursue criminal investigations against corporations found to have violated fire-safety rules.The push for tougher enforcement comes after Indonesian authorities had already begun investigating suspected deliberate fires. Police said earlier this month that most suspects in several cases were individuals who had burned vegetation on their own land for clearing.
Why are Indonesia’s fires so severe?
Indonesia is experiencing an unusually intense fire season as a powerful El Niño pattern has brought hotter and drier conditions.The country’s meteorological agency has warned that El Niño could produce a longer and drier dry season, increasing the risk of forest and land fires. The peak of the dry season was expected between July and September.The islands of Borneo and Sumatra have been among the worst affected. Thick smoke has blanketed parts of Borneo, severely reducing visibility and disrupting daily life, while authorities have reported a sharp increase in respiratory illnesses.More than 12.5 million people across seven provinces have been exposed to hazardous haze, according to recent reporting, while respiratory cases linked to the fires more than doubled in early September.The smoke has also crossed Indonesia’s borders, affecting air quality in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.Government data showed that about 202,004 hectares of land had been affected by fires between January and July.The Forestry Ministry said about 57% of that area was within forest zones and 43% in other areas.Environmental group YKAN has estimated that another 600,000 hectares were affected by fire in August, bringing the scale of the damage to roughly 800,000 hectares when the government and group estimates are combined. Reuters reported that the August figure was an estimate from the environmental group, rather than government data.The scale of the fires remains below the catastrophic levels seen during Indonesia’s 2015 fire crisis, but authorities have warned that the current season is becoming increasingly severe. The Forestry Ministry has said the intensity of the current El Niño has surpassed 2015 levels, although the area affected by fires was still lower than in that year at the time of the comparison.
