Regional policies and practices on fire and haze: A case study in West Kalimantan

Regional polices and practices on fire and

haze

A case study in West Kalimantan

Presented by Moira Moeliono based on the work of Paul Thung

Fire and Haze in ASEAN

• Fire and Haze: annual crisis in the region since 1980s

• In response: o The Regional Haze Action Plan 1997

o the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution 2014

o National laws (e.g Singapore re prosecuting people and firms that contribute to the haze.

o Regional meetings, consultations, e.g. In early August 2015, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam met to discuss the haze problem

NASA image by Adam Voiland (NASA Earth Observatory) and Jeff Schmaltz (LANCE MODIS Rapid Response) -http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86681, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43744984

From policy to practice or practice to policy?

• Looking beyond the letter of law

• Translations: how polices are interpreted, accommodated, negotiated, and/or resisted

A case study on the persistence of shifting

cultivation in the context of post-2015 anti-haze

regulations in West-Kalimantan, Indonesia

A dissertation supervised by Evan Killick (University of Sussex)and a result of a 3-month internship working with Maria

Brockhaus, Moira Moeliono, Indah Waty, Cynthia Maharani,

Shintia Arwida and Grace Wong,

Fire and Haze

• 2015 haze crisis

• >2000 hotspots

• Loss of >47billion USD

In response Indonesia issued a ban on burning

2. Swidden in ASEAN: driver of fire and haze?

• Social, ecological, economic systems

• Large-scale patterns

• Policies of swidden

• Politics of swidden

Drivers of Swidden Transformation

(Van Vliet, 2012)

Demographic Drivers (In/out) migration

Population growth

Population distribution

Economic Drivers Road network

Logging and mining

Infrastructure development

Market development

Economic structures (e.g. credit, cooperatives)

Urbanization

Agro technical innovations

Policy and institutional drivers Public policies (e.g. land use, forest,

agriculture)

Social and cultural drivers Public attitudes towards swidden

Social trigger

Environmental and biophysical drivers Environmental and biophysical drivers (slope,

topography, fires, droughts, floods and pests

etc.)

Actors’ perceptions on swidden (ASFCC case

study Vietnam) National level: swidden is considered as a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation and needs to be eliminated

Provincial level: persistence of swidden is considered as a failure of political performance, thus no data is collected

District level: swidden is allowed at the margins as one way to maintain national security at border areas

Commune and village level: allows swidden to harmonize interests of different groups and avoid protest of ethnic groups to government

Household level: swidden as a normal practice for food security

3. Theoretical Framework

(after Scott)

• Subsistence ethic

• Everyday resistance

• Legibility

4. Data Collection

• Semi-structured stakeholder interviews

• Informal interviews

• Participant observation (13-25 August)

Site Description

Positions and interpretations regarding the ban

Formal

stance

Immediate

necessity of

fire for

subsistence

Swidden

responsible

for haze?

Legal status of

burning

swidden

Explanation of

the ban

District

government

Opposed Yes No [not discussed] Political

Police Supportive Yes Yes Illegal Political

Indigenous

rights NGO

Opposed Yes No Legal Political

Environmental

NGO

Opposed Yes Yes Illegal Political

Village

government

Supportive Yes No Illegal Political

Villagers Opposed Yes No Legal Political

Positions and interpretations

• Subsistenceo “If not burnt, then how?”, o “If the government can feed us, they can prohibit us to burn”,

• Swidden and Hazeo the burning of land had been practiced since the time of the

villagers’ ancestors (dari nenek moyang), and this had never been a problem until now

• Legalityo the right to burn lands under specific circumstances was

protected by law

…Haze Politics and the Police

• Haze-relations of accountability

• Ban or no ban

• “We have to be very, very careful” (sangat hatisekali)

…Village Government Politics

• “The village government is the lowest government”

o “Smart people in Jakarta have defined this policy, they have thought about it – just right. Us ignorant farmers, what do we know?”

• Sawah

• Far from the road

Possible responses to the ban as mentioned in

discussionsObedience “Ways Out” Conflict

Not burning endangers

subsistence

Coordinate to prevent

simultaneous fires

Fighting risks getting hurt

Political confrontation risks

losing political favour

Choose remote locations

Choose untitled land

Use young and small fallows

for quicker and smaller fires

Eat for free in jail (bring pets

and family)

Burn after jail is full

Burn while the Iban fight the

police

Rely on reputation of

aggression to keep the police

out

Negotiate with the police

8. Conclusions

• Subsistence confronts authority

• Uncoordinated collaboration

• The two faces illegibility

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