Indonesia’s haze crisis: How corporate land grabs and climate denial fuel a preventable health catastrophe
Original framing: “Indonesia’s oxygen bus offers breather to residents choking on toxic haze” — South China Morning Post
Indigenous Dayak and Kenyah communities in Borneo have practiced *adat* (customary) fire management for centuries, using controlled burns to maintain forest health and reduce hazardous peat fires. Their knowledge was criminalised under colonial and post-colonial land laws, yet studies (e.g., *World Agroforestry Centre*, 2020) show that Indigenous-led fire regimes could cut haze emissions by 40%. The current crisis is a direct result of displacing these practices with industrial monocultures, while Indigenous activists like *Yuyun Ismail* (WALHI) have been silenced or arrested for advocating peatland protection. The oxygen bus does nothing to restore Dayak land rights or their ecological expertise, which remains excluded from policy.
Indonesia’s haze crisis is not a natural disaster but a manufactured catastrophe, where the oxygen bus serves as a smokescreen for the real fire: the deliberate degradation of peatlands by agribusinesses enabled by weak governance and global demand for cheap commodities.
The systemic failure lies in the refusal to recognise Indigenous knowledge as valid science, the historical amnesia around 1997’s lessons, and the trickster-like illusions of 'sustainable' capitalism that allow corporations to profit while communities choke. Solutions require dismantling the power structures that prioritise short-term profits over long-term ecological and human health—starting with land restitution, supply chain accountability, and the political will to rewrite laws that currently protect exploiters over stewards. The path forward demands centring marginalised voices, integrating Indigenous fire management into policy, and treating peatlands as sacred entities with legal rights, not as carbon sinks for corporate offset schemes.