The Indonesian government emphasizes that research conducted on the occurrence of forest and land fires in Indonesia must be based on data.
The Indonesian government also emphasized that research should not use false narratives.
The statement was in response to a study by David Gaveau published in the journal Earth System Science Data, November 2021.
David Gaveau also published an article related to the study on theconservation.com, December 17, 2021.
David Gaveau conducted a study on forest and land fires in Indonesia in 2019. The results of the study show that the area of forest and land fires in Indonesia is twice as large as official data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK).
The Head of the KLHK’s Bureau of Foreign Cooperation (KLN) Dida Migfar Ridha explained that this problem began when David Gaveau published an erroneous report shortly before the 2019 COP25 climate change conference.
“If you look at the timing, it is clearly meant to undermine the credibility of the efforts made by the Indonesian government to tackle the problem of deforestation and forest and land fires,” said Dida.
According to Dida, after the publication of this report, the research institute that oversees David Gaveau, namely CIFOR, stated that it had regretted the timing and that there had been a misstep in publishing this year’s fire analysis prematurely.
CIFOR also stated that the research in question did not comply with the so-called “normal oversight of peer-review processes conducted by scientific journals”, and “that primary forest destruction was very low” in Indonesia.
The research process violates Law of National System of Science and Technology No. 11 of 2019. As a result of this violation, David Gaveau was then deported from Indonesia.
Dida emphasized that in addressing the challenges to the environment, it is important to distinguish between false narratives and science-based research.
“The Indonesian government respectfully recommends that David Gaveau seek guidance on best practice in the scientific field,” he said.
Based on official KHLK data, the area of forest and land fires in 2019 was 1.65 million hectares. Efforts to control forest and land fires carried out in 2020 succeeded in reducing the area of forest and land fires by 82.01% to only 296,942 hectares.
In 2021, Indonesia’s land and forest fires area is 15.93% higher than in 2020 to 353,222 hectares.
The increase in forest and land fires occurred not in peatlands, but in savanna, scrub and dry land agriculture in NTT.
When compared to 2014, when President Joko Widodo took office, Indonesia’s land and forest fires area in 2021 decreased by 87.06% or the equivalent of 1.5 million hectares. ***
