The research on fire and landscape reported here was undertaken to improve understanding of underlying causes of “fire”, and of impacts of fire, interpreted in a context of landscape transformation in the long term. This research interprets fire events, and especially concentrations of unwanted fires, as particular moments within broader regional landscape history. Fieldwork for this research was conducted in West Kalimantan in the years 1999 and 2000. The Sanggau study site represents a region of Kalimantan that has experienced a relatively low but significant incidence of uncontrolled fire, compared with this project’s other 7 sites. In one sense, the Sanggau site represents an encouraging “best case” fire scenario, since like other sites where fire has been more devastating, this region has also experienced rapid conversion of much of its land from indigenous agroforestry and primary forests to agroindustrial plantations during the 1980s and 1990s. However, understanding both the underlying and immediate causes of recent fires in Sanggau also warns that relying too heavily on either macro-level reforms in land allocation policy or on local and regional fire management initiatives would not effectively solve the complex combination of fire problems in this area.
Publication year
2000
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
carbon, soil properties
Geographic
Indonesia
