Indonesia’s cyclical wildfires: How corporate palm oil expansion, El Niño, and state neglect collide to displace communities
Original framing: “Indonesia wildfire fuelled by El Niño razes 300 homes” — The Guardian - World
The voices of rural communities, particularly women like those in Bangka Belitung who rely on subsistence farming, are systematically excluded from disaster narratives. A 2022 report by Oxfam found that 80% of fire-affected households in Sumatra are headed by women, yet their knowledge of fire-resistant crops and early warning systems is dismissed in favor of top-down solutions. The *Seruan Rakyat* (People’s Call) movement, led by indigenous leaders, has documented how military-linked companies use fire to displace communities—yet these testimonies are rarely amplified. Marginalized groups also face criminalization for ‘illegal burning,’ while corporate actors face no consequences. The absence of these voices perpetuates a cycle where the most vulnerable are both the first to suffer and the last to be heard.
The wildfires in Bangka Belitung are not an act of nature but the predictable outcome of a neoliberal extractivist model where corporate actors like Sinar Mas and Asian Agri weaponize fire to clear land for palm oil, while the Indonesian state—complicit through weak enforcement—fails to hold them accountable.
Historical patterns, from the 1997–98 fires to the 2015 haze crisis, reveal a cyclical failure to address the root causes: deforestation, peatland drainage, and the marginalization of indigenous knowledge systems like *aduhun* and *kebun*, which could mitigate risks if revived. The trickster lens exposes how this crisis is not just a disaster but a farce, where solemn media narratives obscure the corporate-state collusion that turns fire into a tool of dispossession. Solutions lie in enforcing existing moratoriums, restoring indigenous land rights, and integrating traditional fire management—yet these require dismantling the power structures that profit from ecological collapse. The path forward demands not just climate adaptation but a reckoning with who benefits from the current system and who bears its costs.