POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INTERESTS
The answers point to entrenched political and economic interests. In Indonesia, governments rely heavily on land-based revenue and resource-linked growth. Plantation agriculture and other land-intensive sectors remain central to the national economy, generating tens of billions of dollars annually in export earnings. These incentives favour continued land conversion, often at the expense of long-term environmental stability.
These political and economic dynamics also shape how responsibility for fires is assigned and enforced. Satellite analyses consistently show that a substantial share of large-scale fires occurs within or adjacent to industrial concessions, even as smallholders are frequently blamed.
This overlap can complicate attribution and, in practice, contribute to uneven enforcement outcomes, particularly in contexts where economic and political considerations are closely intertwined. Evidence from West Kalimantan, Indonesia, shows many farmers are willing to adopt fire-free practices when viable alternatives exist.
Current programmes, however, often fail to address constraints such as insecure land tenure and limited access to finance. Fire bans alone are unlikely to succeed.
The limits of Indonesia’s restoration efforts reflect these broader governance challenges. Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency, established in 2016, was assigned to restore around 2 million hectares of degraded peatland at an estimated cost of US$3.2 billion to US$7 billion.
While the agency has achieved progress, it has struggled against the scale of degradation, fragmented concession systems and uneven local implementation. Fires declined between 2015 and 2018, only to surge again in 2019.
Similar limitations exist at the regional level. The ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, signed in 2002 and fully ratified only in 2014, contains no sanction mechanism for non-compliance. It reflects ASEAN’s longstanding preference for consensus and non-interference over enforceable accountability. Singapore’s decision to introduce its own Transboundary Haze Pollution Act in 2014 underscored the limitations of the regional approach.
The consequence is a recurring cycle of temporary gains followed by renewed crises. Hotspot numbers often fall during wetter years and rise again when dry conditions return, even as the structural drivers of fire risk remain intact.