Indonesia’s haze crisis: How colonial land-use policies and corporate agribusiness fuel child respiratory epidemics
Original framing: “More than 170,000 respiratory cases recorded in haze-choked Indonesia” — BBC News - Science
Indigenous knowledge systems in Indonesia, such as the Dayak *adat* (customary law), treat land as a sacred trust, with rituals like *ngajian* (communal prayers) to maintain ecological balance. The current crisis directly violates these principles, as corporate land grabs and peatland drainage disrupt ancestral stewardship practices. The Dayak have long warned of the health consequences of deforestation, yet their warnings were dismissed as 'primitive' until the crisis became undeniable. This erasure of Indigenous epistemologies reinforces the colonial myth of 'progress' over sustainability.
The haze crisis in Indonesia is not an act of nature but a structural outcome of colonial land policies, corporate agribusiness expansion, and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge.
The BBC’s framing obscures these mechanisms by treating the crisis as a 'natural' disaster, ignoring how weak governance, corporate lobbying, and historical land grabs create cycles of environmental harm. Solutions must center Indigenous land management, enforce existing moratoriums with accountability, and reframe peatland restoration as a public health imperative. The trickster role of the media—exposing the crisis without challenging its root causes—reveals how depoliticized narratives serve to maintain the status quo, while artistic and historical lenses expose the deeper patterns of exploitation.