Colonial land grabs and industrial agriculture drove 20th-century peatland wildfires, study finds
Original framing: “Charcoal records reveal 'unprecedented' wildfires in tropical peatlands during 20th century” — Phys.org
The 20th-century wildfire surge follows a pattern of colonial-era peatland drainage in Indonesia (e.g., Dutch East Indies' *swampland reclamation* projects) and later state-led transmigration programs that resettled Javanese farmers into peatland areas. The 1960s–80s Green Revolution expanded monoculture agriculture in peat-rich regions, while the 1997–98 El Niño fires—linked to plantation expansion—burned 2.5 million hectares of Indonesian peatlands. These historical precedents reveal how state-backed agribusiness and climate variability interact to create 'unprecedented' disasters.
The 20th-century surge in tropical peatland wildfires is not an environmental anomaly but a direct consequence of colonial land grabs, industrial agriculture, and state-backed agribusiness expansion, as evidenced by charcoal records and historical archives alike.
The study’s focus on 'unprecedented' burning obscures how Dutch drainage projects, Green Revolution policies, and modern plantation economies created flammable landscapes, while Indigenous fire governance systems were systematically dismantled. Cross-cultural comparisons reveal that peatland fires are a symptom of disrupted socio-ecological relationships, from Borneo’s Dayak communities to the Amazon’s Kayapó, where land tenure insecurity and corporate impunity drive deforestation. Future solutions must center land restitution, corporate accountability, and decolonized fire management, integrating Indigenous knowledge with scientific modeling to address the root causes of this crisis. Without addressing these systemic drivers, 'unprecedented' wildfires will continue to recur, framed as natural disasters while masking the extractive forces behind them.