Historical study of peat protection policy to prevent forest and land fires in Indonesia (1990-2020)

Abstract

This study aims to analyze Indonesia's peat ecosystem protection policy in handling forest and land fires (karhutla). The qualitative research method employs a historical approach relating to the policies of the Republic of Indonesia's government, including general policies and implementation policies. The limitation of the research is for three decades, namely 1990-2020. The primary data was collected through interviews, and the secondary data was collected through library research techniques and online data retrieval. The study's findings show that, although forest and land fires have been occurring for a long time, specific protection regulations only began in the early 1990s. Following that, there was a shift in policy orientation from utilization to sustainable development. Indicators of achievement of policy implementation are seen through the area of burned land and the number of fire hotspots. It decreased in the last half-decade or post-karhutla in 2015 after going through policy corrections and actions, which changed the working paradigm of forest and land fire control from extinguishing prevention.