Fire prevention pilot programmes making some progress in Indonesia

Jakarta

ON A RECENT afternoon in April, Craig Tribolet surveys an expanse of tinder-dry scrub not far outside of the village of Sering in the province of Riau. In October last year, three walls of fires, which were almost certainly deliberately lit, merged to lay waste to what was once a communal forest perched atop a dome of peat.

Just three days after the last gasps of the rainy season, leaves pulverise under foot in 36-degree heat. Here and there dead trees break up the 11-hectare clearing. Mr Tribolet, who oversees fire protection for Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd (April), was at this spot in October. His men ran two lengths of 60 metre hoses from water trucks parked on the access road to fend off the blaze. He reckons he'll be back to this spot before too long.

"I'd bet by July they'll be back to burn," the Australian born Tribolet said of the arsonists.

"They'll want a clear space for palm oil."

To improve the odds that Tribolet and his crew won't have to make more trips to villages like Sering, April is expanding a pilot programme that rewards participating villages for preventing fires. Communities deemed "fire free" during the height of the dry season, which runs four months to October, earn 100 million rupiah (S$10,233), to be used for public amenities such as a covered market or even their own fire fighting equipment.

Last year the programme reached nine villages, including Sering, which didn't win any prize money. This year, April will dip into its US$6 million fire fighting and disaster contingency fund, earmarking US$1 million to expand the effort to 20 villages. On top of the prize money itself, the company pays for fire detection equipment, and salaries. Crew leaders at each village, each decked out in a red polo shirt embossed with the company's logo, make daily visits to neighbours to coax them away from the ultra cheap but effective practice of slash and burn.

The programme has met with some success. Last year, amid the worst fire season in two decades, April lost 50 hectares in its concession area to fire. In 2014, it lost 750 hectares.

Anderson Tanoto, who is a director at April's parent company Royal Golden Eagle, says the programme reflects a recent switch in emphasis in government and business away from fire fighting to prevention.

"I was pleasantly surprised with the results," Mr Tanoto, who is the son of the RGE's founder Sukanto Tanoto, told The Business Times.

"This is money better spent than operating a helicopter every day for five hours a day. Prevention is now part of the language."

Mr Tanoto said he was "embarrassed" with the TV images of last year's haze crisis as he accompanied President Joko Widodo on his first official visit to Washington DC. "The industry lost. Indonesia lost from the haze."

Environmentalists say that while the effort is welcome, it's only a small step toward undoing decades of devastating practices such as draining peat land and clear cutting virgin forest. Dried peat oxidises, sending thousands of years of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Last year's fires swept through 2.6 million hectares last year, one million of which was peat.

And while April may have finally found religion, thanks to a new generation of managers such as the 26-year-old US- educated Tanoto, its suppliers may be less environmentally sensitive. Some 40 independently operated suppliers currently operate on about 60 per cent of April's concession area. None has had their contracts terminated for poor fire prevention practices although one supplier is currently under suspension, the company says.

Mr Tanoto argues that cutting off suppliers drives them into the arms of rival buyers who may care less about climate change. Mr Tanoto says he prefers a softer approach that allows time to change practices over the longer term.

Similar fire prevention programmes are taking root at rival plantation companies such as Asian Pulp and Paper. A broader government effort is also said to be in the works. But such grand plans overlook the painstaking work needed to build rapport with villagers who are unimpressed with outsiders telling them what to do. April says it took four months of village talks to get the pilot programme up and running. Bairo is one example of that daily slog. The 26-year-old crew leader, who uses one name, goes house to house everyday encouraging his neighbours to refrain from slash and burn practices that are now banned by the government. Last year his village of Segama won April's prize money and will put it toward fire fighting equipment.

"We work hard to build a rapport, to encourage people to change," Mr Bairo says. "It's better than banning things without a solution."