In Indonesia, it has been common for decades that those who want to prepare land for cultivation of, among other things, palm oil deliberately set fires in order to quickly get rid of forest and other vegetation. 2015 burned over two million hectares. 70-80 percent of the country was covered by smoke, and tens of thousands of people are believed to have become ill by the smoke.

It is this devastation that Bambang Hero Saharjo, professor of forest protection at the University of Bogor, wants to put an end to. He goes to fire places around the country to gather evidence of incendiary fires. Over the past twenty years, despite threats against himself and his family, he has testified in hundreds of investigations where companies are suspected of causing fires.

Maybe it's his hard work that has finally begun to bear fruit. Because when Global Forest Watch released this spring a report in 2018 that showed that the world's rainforests continue to devastate, it was a country that went against the flow: Indonesia. Not since 2003 had so little forest disappeared in Indonesia as in 2018.

"The fires are on the rise"

Representatives of the Indonesian authorities went out directly, saying that it was the authorities' tougher hold on forest burners and other shovels, which started after the extensive fires in 2015, which has now yielded results.

However, several environmental organizations warned, saying that the main reason for the fires was that the years after the dry years of 2014 and 2015 offered much more rain. The authorities were still far too lenient towards the companies that burn the forest, the criticism sounded.

When Bambang Hero Saharjo in August earlier this year took us to one of the places that had just been burned, he let us understand that both authorities and environmental organizations could be right. Perhaps it took both harder and more rain to get to a favorable year like 2018.

Then he screwed himself up: "Unfortunately, it looks like the fires are about to increase again, this year. The autumn will be dry and I am very worried. ”

No longer a bright spot

Now that the year is beginning to end, all reports from Indonesia indicate that Bambang Hero Saharjo is right. 2019 seems to be the worst year since 2015 when it comes to forest fires in Indonesia.

The question is how this will affect the next survey from Global Forest Watch. Will Indonesia still stand as the positive exception or has the country fallen back into old wheel tracks again?

If there is a high risk that Indonesia will soon no longer be the bright spot we need in the fight to save what remains of the world's rainforests.