Yvette Tanamal, Jakarta – A Singapore-based think-tank assessing transboundary haze from forest fires issued a rare "code red" warning on Wednesday, flagging a risk for severe regional haze between August and September and urging Indonesia to step up mitigation efforts ahead of the peak of warming weather phenomenon El Nino.
In a 15-page report, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) said Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei are in the potential path of haze, citing a convergence of hotter, drier conditions, stretched enforcement and rising agricultural costs that could increase the use of fire for land clearing.
While the past two years saw lower haze risks due to La Nina bringing heavier rainfall, the report said the remaining months of 2026 could potentially be "one of the hottest and driest dry seasons on record", driven by El Nino and another warming climate phenomenon called the positive Indian Ocean Dipole.
Against this backdrop, the report said efforts from the government and the private sector will be even more crucial this year to keep fires and haze under control, particularly in Indonesia, whose vast plantation areas make it central to the region's haze risks.
"The last few episodes [of haze] have tended to be from Indonesia. Of course, this is logical as it is a much larger country [and as] a resource-based country with a strong record of producing palm oil," SIIA chairman Simon Tay said in a briefing on Wednesday.
While acknowledging Indonesia's efforts to curb transboundary haze in recent years, including stricter enforcement against illegal burning, Tay noted that this year, rising costs of fertilizer and fuel caused by the Middle East war could lead to clearing land by burning as farmers try to cut costs.
Internationally benchmarked standards for sustainable farming, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE), are typically followed by larger, more established companies in Indonesia, he added, while smaller, family-owned plantations are often less consistent in adopting such practices.
"So this brings us back to governance. Given the huge diversity among the producing, potentially fire-burning producers, governments will have to implement and control their laws to stop these problems. They have to exercise real oversight and control," Tay said.
Policy test
The SIIA report described this year's dry season as a key policy test of whether the administration of Prabowo Subianto could maintain the momentum built under previous leader Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who stepped up haze mitigation efforts following the 2015 Southeast Asian crisis.
The 2015 crisis saw widespread forest and peatland fires in Indonesia blanket much of the region in toxic smoke, disrupting transport, shutting schools and affecting millions. At the height of the crisis, Jokowi reportedly expressed regret to Malaysia for the haze. He then tightened enforcement against illegal burning, sanctioned noncompliant firms and launched large-scale peatland restoration, though instances of forest fires and haze still persisted in the following years, including in 2019 and 2023.
And while the Prabowo administration has signaled seriousness in tackling the issue, including through the formation of a task force under the Office of the Coordinating Politics and Security Minister, the report warned that budget constraints in Jakarta could constrain response efforts, particularly resource-intensive measures such as cloud seeding.
In March, the Forestry Ministry said it was planning to carry out 35 weather modification operations this year amid the potential onset of an early El Nino, with the budget for each operation ranging from Rp 2.3 billion (US$131,000) to 2.5 billion.
Last week, coordinating security minister Djamari Chaniago led a meeting on forest fire control to align responses across local administrations, disaster mitigation agencies, the police and the military. He designated six priority provinces: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra and West, Central and South Kalimantan.
The meeting concluded with three national priorities being set, including prevention of large-scale forest fires and transboundary haze and strengthening early detection and rapid response.
Djamari's office, the Forestry Ministry, the Environment Ministry and the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) did not immediately respond to The Jakarta Post's inquiries about the role of budget constraints in their mitigation and response schemes.
Source: https://asianews.network/high-transboundary-haze-risk-puts-indonesian-policy-to-test