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Using integrated fire management clusters as an approach to align Indonesia’s humanitarian, climate and REDD+ policy agenda

Blog | Tue, 01 Mar, 2022 · 7 min read
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Peatlands in Indonesia (@EIA)

In 2009 Indonesia committed to significantly reduce its GHG emissions, a commitment that has been integrated in its national determined contributions. Wildfires on peat make up a significant part of these emissions. From 2016 to 2020, they contributed to over 50 percent of total emissions. In addition, haze related to wildfires is the largest humanitarian disaster impacting Indonesia and adjacent countries. A 2016 study estimated that the ‘2015 Southeast Asian haze may have caused around 100,000 deaths and impacted over 28 million people in Indonesia alone, with more than 140,000 reported respiratory illnesses. This makes peat fires the largest humanitarian disaster affecting the ASEAN region.

UNEP, together with the UN-REDD Programme, has been working on integrated fire management since 2015. The initial scope, with support from USAID, was on community capacity, building strength through community-based fire brigades and land restoration pilots. In response to the development of a cluster -based integrated fire management approach, UNEP organized a South-South collaboration with South Africa. Both the government of Indonesia (GOI), USAID and UNEP concluded that the cluster approach and having Indonesian policy makers get familiar with practices from  the South African Fire Protection Association, was strengthening Indonesia’s fire management.

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Indonesian policy makers and private sector members on a study tour to South Africa in 2016

 

UNEP, with support from USAID, has worked on clusters, which are based on fire protection associations. These associations bring together land users and related government departments. Core elements of clusters are establishing anticipatory capacity to respond to emerging fire risk through the fire risk motoring system. In addition, UNEP is working to operationalize incident command systems, from the village to national level, increasing local capacity to be better prepared for disasters. The current pilot process has shown that the clusters are filling an essential gap and utilizing both government resources and those developed by the private sector. The Incidents command system  plays a critical role here, as large concessions have established their own.

Meeting between local government, private sector, UNEP and USAID on the pilot cluster.

 

It is important to improve land use practices through facilitating the collaboration between land users and land use planning, specifically drainage-based land use planning. Equally important is the facilitation of  consensus between cluster members on cluster-based land use that is aligned with required ground water level for sustainable use of tropical peatlands. This in turn will create fire resilient landscapes that improve the management of tropical peatlands and can transit  local economies towards a green economy.

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Communities dependent on peatlands require risk resilient landscapes to cope with fires and floods that affect their health and livelihoods. During an UNEP facilitated visit to a peat restoration site, land users are discussing land use implications of peat restoration (@UN-REDD)

As outlined above each land use type has its own required drainage depth to meet set policy goals in terms of subsidence and emissions, thus addressing fire risk and flooding. This is a fundamental principle for sustainable management of peat lands.

As such, clusters are a promising approach to operationalize the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030. This framework outlines clear targets and priorities for action to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risks, including:

  1. understanding disaster risk, through improved early warming, as well by addressing peat degradation, land subsidence and flooding risks. Flooding is becoming an increased risk with significant impacts on livelihoods and health, impacting 39 million hectares with a population of approximately 100 million people;
  2.  strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk through the cluster and improved use of integrated fire management resources;
  3. investing in disaster reduction by moving to fire resilient landscapes as the ultimate approach to align both the Indonesian commitments to the Sendai framework as well as the UNFCCC Paris Agreement and NDC commitments. Clusters provide, through the principle of land use-based planning, participation and collaboration, an excellent platform to realize risk resilient management of tropical peat landscapes, thus improving the lives of those impacted by haze and floods in Southeast Asia.

Author

Johan Kieft

Senior Regional Advisor Asia-Pacific on Green Economy

johan.kieft@un.org