The underlying causes and impacts of fires in Southeast Asia final report

Large-scale fires and associated smoke is an increasing problem in Indonesia and surroundingcountries as evidenced by large scale burning in 1982/1983, 1987, 1991, 1994, and1997/1998. These fires devastated large areas of forest and caused significant economiclosses, both in Indonesia where most fires occurred and in neighboring countries. The majorcauses of these fires are, however, still unclear. Many have blamed small-scale farmers andlarge-scale estates for causing fires, suggesting that these actors deliberately set fire to foreststo open up land for plantations or agriculture.In 1998, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the International Centre forResearch in Agroforestry (ICRAF), and the United States Forest Service (USFS) commenceda multi-disciplinary study into the underlying causes and impacts of forest and forest landfires in Indonesia. In order to assess the relative roles of the different factors influencing thecreation of fire-prone and fire-resistant landscapes, eight study sites with different historicalland use patterns were chosen across Sumatra and Kalimantan. A number of common landuse situations were studied including large-scale plantations, transmigration projects, smallholderplantations, logging activities in natural forests, and agriculture. The sites alsoincluded some areas with peat soils, the burning of which contributed substantially to smokeand haze during the 1997/98 fires.The sites formed the basis for understanding the extent to which the causes of fires areinfluenced by land use policies and practices from the village level through to the centralgovernment. Combining spatial analysis with social science research provided answers tothese questions. Satellite imagery along with field investigations provided information on thelocation, extent, and the type of land cover burned. However, only through extensiveinterviews with local people combined with on-the-ground participatory mapping, couldinformation be derived regarding who was responsible for the fires and what were theunderlying reasons for them.

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