haze
In Indonesia’s forest fire capital, the dry season brings yet more burning
JAKARTA — Fires are flaring up in Indonesia’s Riau province, the perennial epicenter of the burning season in Sumatra, as the dry season sets in. At the end of March, fires had burned nearly 169 hectares (417 acres) of land in Riau, where large swaths of forests and peatlands have been burned to make way […]
As dry season starts in Indonesia, risk of fires — and haze — looms
JAKARTA — A new analysis warns of the potential for forest fires in Indonesia that could spread smoke to neighboring countries as this year’s dry season sets in, following two years of haze-free skies across this part of Southeast Asia. In their “Haze Outlook 2022” report, researchers at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) […]
Sumatra palm plantations the usual suspects as unusual burning razes peatlands
JAKARTA — Fires in areas of carbon-intense peatland forest on the island of Sumatra appear to have been set in and around oil palm plantation concessions and could signal the start of another season of forest-razing burns in Indonesia. The fires burned 6,168 hectares (15,241 acres) of peatlands — an area 18 times the size […]
Indonesia’s new epicenter of forest fires shifts away from Sumatra and Borneo
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s land and forest fires burned a greater area this year than in 2020, with most of the fires occurring in West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara, two provinces that were until recently not major sites of burning. As of the end of November, fires had burned 353,222 hectares (872,831 acres) of […]
2019 fires in Indonesia were twice as bad as the government claimed, study shows
JAKARTA — In 2019, fires raged through Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands, sparked by the deliberate burning of land for agriculture, and fanned by an El Niño system bringing drier-than-usual weather conditions. Ultimately, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry would put the total affected area at 1.64 million hectares (4.05 million acres), an area half […]
Palm oil firm that dried out its land held not liable for fires that followed
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s highest court has upheld a ruling declaring a palm oil company not responsible for fires in its concession, in a verdict that boils down to the company not being liable simply because it had put up “no burning” signs. Environmental experts say the Nov. 8 ruling by the Supreme Court in favor […]