Forest fire contest : The case of forest fire policy design in Indonesia

The Indonesian government actions to countermine Forest fires fail and lack public trust. This issue becomes more complicated when forest fire effects are followed by another series of problematic impacts. For example, forest fires create haze disasters, then the haze affects health, transportation, the economic etc. This problem makes forest fire extinguishing activity a perpetual and never-ending story. Researchers find out that the incongruence between the causes of fires and proposed management solutions occur in countries all over the world, including in Indonesia. The Indonesian Government spends large amounts of money to extinguish forest fires, but forest fires still occur and sometimes become worse in El-Nino and drought seasons. Forest fire researchers claim that there is a discrepancy between the causes of forest fire. This research defines and categorizes 2 approaches based on the causes. They are: the technical approach which is the idea of a single frame to extinguish the fire. Meanwhile, the social, environmental, and political approach refers to the fact that forest fire management is not just management to extinguish ‘the fire’ but a complexity of the nature of ‘fire’ which pertains to the effects of other issues that also have a secondary impact. Severe weather contributes to making the effect of forest fire broad and uncontrollable, but it does not ignite the fire. In 2015, 99% forest fires happened because of human burning activity. Then after the 2015 conflagration, forest fire policy was renewed, revoked, and recreated. Since 2015, all burning activity has been forbidden no exception made for swidden. However, although a reduction of forest fires nevertheless was achieved in 2017 many researchers claim that oil palm plantations and swidden cultivation are the culprits of the forest fires. This piece of research wants to understand why the fire policy implementation continues using the technical approach dominantly over the years. For over 18 years forest fires continue to happen; the question has arisen examining what the challenge and obstacles are that forest fire policy design does not consider as well as the social, environmental and political causes of forest fires, together with the technical causes in the policy process and implementation.