Community-Based Fire Management and Peatland Restoration in Indonesia

AbstractIndonesia suffers from recurrent land and forest fires due to anthropogenic disturbances, such as land clearing and peatland drainage for agricultural activities and expansion of large-scale plantation. The Indonesian government launched a restoration program in 2016 to restore degraded peatlands and prevent fires. Community Fire Brigades or Masyarakat Peduli Api (MPA) is the forefront actor in community-based fire management and plays a significant role in fire prevention and peatland restoration at the local level in Indonesia. This paper examines community’s perspectives and opinions on the role and challenges of community-based fire management and peatland restoration. The paper draws from case studies of six villages situated at two fire-prone provinces in Riau and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. We employ the cohesive fire management strategy model as a lens to understand the challenges and effectiveness of a community-based fire management strategy in Indonesia. The cohesive fire management strategy focuses on three key areas: creating a resilient landscape, developing fire adaptive communities, and implementing a fire management strategy. We found that MPAs face diverse challenges that reduce their capacity to prevent and control forest and land fires. One of the most common challenges faced by the MPAs is the lack of financial support for routine operation and maintenance of peatland rewetting infrastructures. Meanwhile, at the broader community level, the absence of affordable no-burning technology for land clearing and the lack of reward and punishment system have hampered efforts to reduce fire incidents. We suggest that the Indonesian government prioritizes funding support for MPAs to ensure the effective operationalization of community-based fire management in fire-prone provinces. We also suggest the need for the private sector and NGOs to step in to address the gap in support for community-based fire management and peatland restoration.