Forest Fires Linked to Regional Elections?
Forest Fires Linked to Regional Elections?
21 September 2015
published by www.globalindonesianvoices.com
Indonesia– Jakarta, GIVnews.com Indonesias environmental watchdog WALHI has warned that the upcoming simultaneous regional elections could have played part in the occurrence of the current forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
WALHI executive director Abet Nego Tarigan said provincial figures including incumbent administrators who aspire to contest in elections badly need large amounts of funds. For some of them, granting forest concession for plantation projects is a lucrative alternative to mobilize funds for their campaigning.
On 9 December 2015, the nation will hold simultaneous elections across 9 provinces, 269 districts and 36 cities to elect governors, district heads and city mayors and their running mates. The 9 December elections will be the first of the total seven rounds until 2017.
(Read more: The Haze Suffocation)
Speaking in a discussion forum in Jakarta on Saturday (19/9), Abet said that information about the easy concessions had come from plantation investors. However, he declined to mention names, Detik.com reported.
Leading up to the local elections, the number of the concessions awarded has increased sharply. One billion rupiah (has been paid) for an estimated one thousand hectare (of forest area). It is so enticing (for local administrators), Abet said.
However, Albet did not specifically alleged that concession holders had used slash-and-burn method in clearing forests for plantations. But his remarks pointed to it. Slash-and burn is still widely used around the world.
In fact, far before the occurrence of the current forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) had reminded authorities about local administrators easily awarding forest concessions to plantation investors. They would do it in order to rake in funds for their reelection or for the election of their relatives.
Meanwhile, Zulkifli Hasan, former forestry minister and currently chairman of the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) agrees with WALHI.
Currently, people who wish to become district head and governor need support from capital owners. This is because our politics is still transactional. Without capital owners support they are not salable, Zulkifli told reporters in Shanghai, China, on Sunday (20/9). The MPR chairman is on an official visit to China.The Situation Today
As a result of these various factors and especially the combination of very limited removals of fuel (either by logging or by intentionally setting fires) and fire suppression, large crown fires have become the norm in the Northwest, destroying millions of acres of trees every year and threatening peoples lives and livelihoods. Meanwhile, the Forest Service and other forest-owning federal agencies, including as the Bureau of Land Management, have increased their expenditure on fire suppression in direct proportion to the area burned as shown in Figure 8.
As this years fires demonstrate, another megafire like Big Blowup seems increasingly likely. With more people living in or near forests, such a fire could be far more deadly and economically devastating. It would also likely destroy vast swathes of species habitat, including that of the spotted owl.
For the sakes of people and the environment, the management of the forests in the Northwest must change. One objective might be to return the forest lands in the Northwest to a condition similar to that which pertained prior to European settlement. That could be done through a combination of ecologically sensitive logging (in most cases, this would meanthinning, not clear-cutting) and prescribed burns, while allowing more wildfires to burn naturally
– See more at: http://reason.org/studies/show/forest-fires-management-reform#sthash.onDA2kLL.dpufIn the hot, dry summer of 1988, several ferocious crown fires raged through Yellowstone,burning more than a third of the National Parks 2.2 million acres, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres in the surrounding area. In some respects,the Yellowstone fire was natural: 80 percent of the trees in the park were lodgepole pine, which is habituated to intense, stand-replacing fires. But the scale of the fire was nonetheless likely exacerbated by the changes in forest management since the 1800s, including 70 years of fire suppression. And the political response was far from natural, as forestry expertAlison Berry notes: Managers were mandated to create fire plans for all federal forest lands, and all fires were to be suppressed until fire plans were in place.
In 1990, the Fish and Wildlife Servicelisted the northern spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Largely in response to this listing, the Forest Service implemented a new ecosystem management policy, which resulted in a further reduction in timber harvests. Then, shortly before he left office President Clinton introduced arule that severely restricted the use of existing roads and construction of new roads on 49 million acres of National Forest, limiting the ability of the Forest Service to thin the dense thickets of trees that resulted from almost a century of fire suppression or even remove dead trees.
The net result of these changes was a dramatic decline in the amount of timber removed from federal lands. As Figure 7 shows, between 1960 and 1990, an average of 10.3 billion board feet of timber were removed each year from Forest Service land. Removals declined precipitously between 1991 and 2000. From 2000 to 2013, an average of just 2.1 billion board feet of timber were removed from Forest Service land. That represents a near 80 percent decline in removals. Similarly, from 1990 to 2002,timber sales on BLM land fell 74 percentas a direct result of these policy changes and has remained at these suppressed levels since then.
Decades of suppression and low levels of timber harvesting on federal lands exacerbated the tendency of forests in the Northwest to become thickets of mature but spindly pines with a dense understory of spruce and fir. (These conditions also favor outbreaks of mountain pine beetle, whichmay exacerbate the risk of fire.) – See more at: http://reason.org/studies/show/forest-fires-management-reform#sthash.onDA2kLL.dpufIn the hot, dry summer of 1988, several ferocious crown fires raged through Yellowstone,burning more than a third of the National Parks 2.2 million acres, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres in the surrounding area. In some respects,the Yellowstone fire was natural: 80 percent of the trees in the park were lodgepole pine, which is habituated to intense, stand-replacing fires. But the scale of the fire was nonetheless likely exacerbated by the changes in forest management since the 1800s, including 70 years of fire suppression. And the political response was far from natural, as forestry expertAlison Berry notes: Managers were mandated to create fire plans for all federal forest lands, and all fires were to be suppressed until fire plans were in place.
In 1990, the Fish and Wildlife Servicelisted the northern spotted owl as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Largely in response to this listing, the Forest Service implemented a new ecosystem management policy, which resulted in a further reduction in timber harvests. Then, shortly before he left office President Clinton introduced arule that severely restricted the use of existing roads and construction of new roads on 49 million acres of National Forest, limiting the ability of the Forest Service to thin the dense thickets of trees that resulted from almost a century of fire suppression or even remove dead trees.
The net result of these changes was a dramatic decline in the amount of timber removed from federal lands. AsFigure 7 shows, between 1960 and 1990, an average of 10.3 billion board feet of timber were removed each year from Forest Service land. Removals declined precipitously between 1991 and 2000. From 2000 to 2013, an average of just 2.1 billion board feet of timber were removed from Forest Service land. That represents a near 80 percent decline in removals. Similarly, from 1990 to 2002,timber sales on BLM land fell 74 percentas a direct result of these policy changes and has remained at these suppressed levels since then.
Decades of suppression and low levels of timber harvesting on federal lands exacerbated the tendency of forests in the Northwest to become thickets of mature but spindly pines with a dense understory of spruce and fir. (These conditions also favor outbreaks of mountain pine beetle, whichmay exacerbate the risk of fire.) – See more at: http://reason.org/studies/show/forest-fires-management-reform#sthash.onDA2kLL.dpuf
On August 19, a ferocious wildfire in Chelan, Washington, claimed the lives of three firefighters. That fire, now 50 percent contained,has burned about 90,000 acres. Meanwhile, in nearby Okanogan, Washington, five massive fires merged to create a 305,000 acre monster, the largest in the states history andstill only 25 percent contained (as of 8/30). Across the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana), currently active fires have burned over 1.4 million acres, destroying homes and businesses in their wake. Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service alone isreportedly spending $100m per week on fire suppression. With conditions tinder dry and fire crews at their limit, worse may yet be to come.
Many of those living near federal forest lands in the Northwest fear a repeat of August 1910, when a single,monstrous wildfire burned 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho, and Montana in two days, killing 92 people. With five times as many people living in those states, such a fire today would likely be far more devastating. Yet, ironically, todays problems in large part stem from the misguided federal response to that fire especially management practices on the 63 percent of forests owned by the federal government(see Figure 1). If worse problems are to be avoided in the future, management practices on those federally owned forests must change.
– See more at: http://reason.org/studies/show/forest-fires-management-reform#sthash.onDA2kLL.dpuf
