Preleminary Analysis of Cause-Effect on Forest-Peatland Fires Prior to 2020 in Central Kalimantan

Abstract

<jats:p>Central Kalimantan covers an area of 157,983 km2 with more than 2,000 km2 of tropical peatlands, which is one of the buffer regions of Indonesia's new capital government city. However, the sad story is the conversion of about one million hectares from peat swamp forests (PSF) to rice fields occurred in the mid-1990s, so called the Mega Rice Project (MRP). Since then, forest and peatland fires become an annual event due to high level of degradation under the climate change symptoms such the frequent of the El Niño event. In very strong El Niño of 2015, Indonesia has returned to the world spotlight in relation to the fires and the haze crisis. The most fire prone area was recorded in the iconic Tumbang Nusa, Pulang Pisau Regency and its adjecent areas. However, the thick haze had covered almost the entire province. There are the dis-adventages impact during more than two months. Therefore, this study was to investigate what are the causes and the impacts of this disaster at the site level. This research location was focuses on three regencies and one city namely Pulang Pisau, Kapuas, Katingan and Palangka City. The method was a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with key figures representing eight clusters of village communities. This method is also supported by statistical, hotspots and spatial data for additional analysis. The result are only two villages with very high average of hotspot and eight with high average of hotspots in Pulang Pisau and Kapuas Regency. Further, the FGDs in seven villages showed that there were three main clusters that caused forest-land fires, namely natural factors, human factors and village policy / regulation factors. The villages study that were affected by the fire in 2015 showed there were three main impacts namely on people, environment and capital. This result is a foundation of cause-effect factor for further Root Cause Analysis to find out the options for fire prevention and management in climate change mitigation efforts.&#x0D; Keywords: Climate Change; El-Niño; Fires; Focus Group Discussion; Peatland</jats:p>

Sustainable Peatland Management Model-A Case of Kalampangan Village, Palangka Raya City, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Based on our previous Focus Group Discussion in several villages in Central Kalimantan, fire impacted peatlands shrink and heat rises, animals and wood are of less economic value and are even extinct, severe and transboundary haze and lots of burnt residue and acid release from peat material to water body. This situation was also proven by previous researchers [54][55][56].…”

“…The majority of respondents, which is around 70%, still practice this way. From our previous research, it was found that the reason for the high practice of respondents who chose to clear their land by fire was because it was the fastest, most efficient, easy and practical way to clean up remaining boundaries and logs [53][54][55]. One of efforts to reduce or to minimize the use of fire swiddening in several area of peatland is the law enforcement of local regulation and/or customary law.…”

The Linkage of El Niño-induced Peat Fires and Its Relation to Current Haze Condition in Central Kalimantan

“…In other words, the condition of air pollution in 2015 probably have a multiplied impact on living things, especially humans and animals. It was stated by our social survey study in villages in Pulang Pisau, Palangka Raya and Katingan (Yulianti et al 2020).…”

Canal Bulkhead Design Preventing Blockage of River Flow: A Case Study in Bangah River, Sebangau National Park, Indonesia

“…The destruction of the canal partition started a catastrophic peat swamp forest fire (Yulianti et al, 2020). On the basis of the data obtained from SNP, NGOs, and ground check results, 77.5% of canal barriers were damaged because they were considered to interfere with community activities in meeting their needs (Warren-Thomas et al, 2022).…”