• Land clearing – The area of peat/swamp forest (PST) being allocated for plantations, and consequently being burned for land clearance, is increasing annually and these fires frequently get out of control. Indonesia is the world’s largest palm-oil producer, and it is predicted that a further 6 million hectares of (primarily forested) land will be converted to oil-palm plantations by 2020, with half of this on peatland (Hooijer et al, 2006). Most of the plantations projects are owned by large, multi-national companies such as Wilmar, Sime Darby, Indofood and London Sumatra, or allowed to strive by major oil-palm buyers such as Nestle, Nabisco, etc.
Small scale land clearing by local farmer can sometimes be a cause of the forest fires as well, although in comparison the impact is very limited.
Related causes include forest clearance associated with other forms of agricultural land conversion, for example the ill – fated Mega Rice Project
In 1995, the Indonesian government initiated the ‘Mega Rice Project’ – an attempt to make Indonesia self sufficient in rice production – which involved the reclamation of 1.5 million hectares of peatland in Central Kalimantan for rice plantation and the transmigration of 100,000 families to the area. Over 4,000 km of deep drainage canals up to 20 m wide were dug. Peatland experts advised against this and correctly predicted the failure of the project, which dried the peat, leading to extensive annual burns and the near-complete destruction of the forest.