Coal fires in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia's fire and haze problem is increasingly being ascribed to large-scale forest conversion and land clearing activities making way for pulpwood, rubber and oil palm plantations. Fire is the cheapest tool available to small holders and plantation owners to reduce vegetation cover and prepare and fertilize extremely poor soils. Fires that escaped from agricultural burns have ravaged East Kalimantan forests on the island of Borneo during extreme drought periods in 1982–1983, 1987, 1991, 1994 and 1997–1998. Estimates based on satellite data and ground observations are that more than five million hectares were burned in East Kalimantan during the 1997/1998 dry season. Not only were the economic losses and ecological damage from these surface fires enormous, they ignited coal seams exposed at the ground surface along their outcrops.

Coal fires now threaten Indonesia's shrinking ecological resources in Kutai National Park and Sungai Wain Nature Reserve. Sungai Wain has one of the last areas of unburned primary rainforest in the Balikpapan–Samarinda area with an extremely rich biodiversity. Although fires in 1997/1998 damaged nearly 50% of this Reserve and ignited 76 coal fires, it remains the most valuable water catchment area in the region and it has been used as a reintroduction site for the endangered orangutan.

The Office of Surface Mining provided Indonesia with the capability to take quick action on coal fires that presented threats to public health and safety, infrastructure or the environment. The US Department of State's Southeast Asia Environmental Protection Initiative through the US Agency for International Development funded the project. Technical assistance and training transferred skills in coal fire management through the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resource's Training Agency to the regional offices; giving the regions the long-term capability to manage coal fires. Funding was also included to extinguish coal fires as demonstrations to the Indonesian Government. Successful demonstrations obtained visible benefits for a large number of local interests and received overwhelmingly favorable public response. This built the public and political support needed to continue this work.

These successes encouraged the Ministry to officially assume the responsibility for coal fire management by Decree 1539/20/MPE/1999. The Ministry reallocated internal funds to support portions of the immediate suppression projects and committed a portion of the Coal Royalty Fund to provide long-term support for coal fire suppression activities. Coal fires continue to present a serious risk to Indonesia's ecosystems, population and forest resources. The Ministry and local governments in East Kalimantan are still working on the coal fire inventory. It presently contains 164 coal fires, but it is far from complete. Unless these coal fires are managed or extinguished, they will add to the already catastrophic cycle of anthropogenic forest fires that further reduce Indonesia's forest resources and endangered species while contributing unnecessarily to global carbon emissions.

Introduction

The Indonesian Archipelago straddles the equator between the continents of Asia on the north and Australia Oceania on the south and lies between two oceans, the Indian to the west and the Pacific to the east. The country shares borders with Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, and East Timor and is composed of more than 17 000 islands of which about 6000 are inhabited. The land area of the islands making up Indonesia amounts to 1.9 million km². Five of the islands, Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya (New Guinea), account for most of the land area and Indonesia's 230 million inhabitants. Tropical rainforests cover much of the larger islands of this nation (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2002).

Following timber harvests, fire remains the cheapest tool to reduce the vegetation cover and prepare and fertilize the poor tropical soils for plantation crops. During drought periods, these fires escape causing extensive damage. Fires ravaged the Kalimantan forests during drought periods in 1982–1983, 1987, 1991 and 1994 Lennertz and Panzer, 1984, Hoffman et al., 1999.

In the prolonged drought of 1997 and 1998, smoke from fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra blanketed the entire region in haze Levine, 1999, Schindler, 1998. An area the size of Costa Rica was devastated and the lives and health of millions of people were jeopardized. The most serious smoke impacts were to Central and West Kalimantan and South Sumatra, but the haze also affected neighbors Malaysia and Singapore. In addition, these fires directly contributed to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO₂ and added up to 40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels (Page et al., 1997).

These fires were, for the most part, deliberately set to clear the forest for pulpwood, rubber, and oil palm plantations. Damage estimates based on satellite data and ground observations are that more than 5 000 000 ha burned in East Kalimantan during the 1997–1998 fires Hoffman et al., 1999, Schindler, 2000 pushing the already endangered orangutans and sun bears closer to extinction.

The portions of Kalimantan and Sumatra most affected by forest fires contain over 90% of Indonesia's coal reserves. Not only were the economic losses and ecological damage from these forest fires enormous, the fires ignited coal seams along their exposed outcrops. Unlike forest and peat fires, coal fires have persisted for decades smoldering underground unaffected by even torrential monsoon rains. In East Kalimantan, coal fires are still burning from each of the forest fire periods consuming the potentially valuable coal resources and destroying the land surface.

Locally, coal fires pose serious health and safety risks from toxic fumes and land surface collapses that destroy infrastructure. On a global basis, they contribute large quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere without providing any of the benefits from energy consumption. In addition to these direct effects, coal fires remain a long-term source of ignition for new forest fires perpetuating a destructive cycle.