JAKARTA: Indonesia has blamed peatland degradation caused by past food estate projects for its worst wildfire season in 11 years and will work to restore its peat ecosystem, a senior official said on Thursday, as thick haze continued to blanket its cities and drift into neighbouring countries.
The Southeast Asian nation is struggling to contain its most intense wildfires since 2015, after an El Niño-driven drought made its forests and land highly flammable. The fires have been raging for months, and hundreds of thousands of people have contracted respiratory illnesses in seven Indonesian provinces alone.
The transboundary haze has also polluted the air in neighbouring countries, with schools suspended in East Timor and some states of Malaysia.
Indonesian cities, especially in Sumatra and Kalimantan, are being choked by haze, with air pollution index readings far exceeding the "hazardous" level of 300.
The Katingan district of Central Kalimantan recorded a reading of nearly 1,600 earlier on Thursday, while the provincial capital, Palangka Raya, recorded nearly 1,300.
Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra are currently the worst-affected areas due to peatland fires, which smoulder slowly beneath the surface, can re-emerge at any time and produce thicker smoke.
"As a result of long-standing interventions, the peatlands in Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra have suffered serious degradation.
Massive drainage efforts were carried out, fundamentally altering the natural properties of the peat," deputy food minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said, identifying a food estate project in the 1990s as one of the causes of the degradation.
"Today, a large portion of these peatlands has been destroyed," he said.
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Peatland protection group Pantau Gambut estimated that, of Indonesia's 24 million hectares of peatland, 16 million hectares have become more fire-prone as a result of ecosystem damage, including extensive deforestation and the depletion of water tables.
A 2024 study by Pantau Gambut showed that only 3 per cent of the peatland damaged by fires between 2015 and 2019 had been restored to forest, while 54 per cent had been converted into monoculture plantations, mainly oil palm.
The government aims to drill wells to rewet peatlands and improve water canal management, Hanif said.
"It is quite simple, yet we have forgotten, neglected, or failed to carry it out," he said.
Dozens of residents of Palangka Raya, which has been shrouded in thick orange smog this week, staged a protest at the governor's office on Thursday, calling for the situation to be handled more effectively, local news reported.
"The sky yesterday was very yellow ... People's activities are far reduced because of this condition. We hope there will be rain soon that will ease this problem," a 46-year-old Palangka Raya resident named Adinata told Reuters.
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