In Poltik Year, Forest Fire Cases Rise For The Imaging Of Regional Head Candidates

Illustration of forest and land fires (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The independent research organization of the World Resource Institute (WRI) Indonesia asked all parties to be aware of forest and land fires that are prone to occur especially during the political year. "Some analyzes from several research institutions say that the trend in Indonesia in the years of regional elections, years after the year of regional or election elections, this is usually deforestation will rise," said WRI Indonesia Program Director Arief Wijaya as quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, February 23. Arief said that cases of deforestation in forests and land in Indonesia cannot be separated from political interests because it is related to political promises of regional head candidates. When they are elected and occupy the position of regional head, then the granting of forest and land clearing permits is inevitable which results in an increase in deforestation numbers in Indonesia. "When they were elected, these gifts were usually in the past years or decades also tried to be realized which resulted in rising rates of forest destruction," said Arief. Referring to data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry over the past nine years, the highest cases of forest and land fires occurred during elections and a year after the democratic party took place. In 2014, the area of forest and burned land only as much as 44 thousand hectares, then significantly increased through the figure of 2.6 million hectares in 2015, then fell again to 438 thousand hectares in 2016.

Cases of forest and land fires fell back to 165 thousand hectares in 2017, then moved up to 529 thousand hectares in 2018, and shot up to 1.6 million hectares of forest and burned land in 2019. Furthermore, cases of forest and land fires were recorded to fall to 296 thousand in 2020, then rose slightly to 358 thousand hectares in 2021, and fell back to 204 thousand hectares of forest and burned land in 2022. On January 25, 2023; Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD had said that by the end of the year, usually people were negligent because they were busy working in dealing with election preparations that made them less alert in protecting forests and land from the threat of fire. He then reminded all regional leaders to increase vigilance to keep forests and land prone to burn in their respective regions.