A possible strong El Niño fuels fears for fires across Indonesian tropical peatlands
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Facebook Linkedin Threads Whatsapp Reddit Email Page link Cite article Meteorologists say emergence of a strong El Niño climate phenomenon is increasingly likely this year, as ocean temperatures in June reached a record high.Indonesian environmental groups fear the drier El Niño conditions could trigger renewed peatland fires in Borneo and Sumatra, particularly on land converted for rice cultivation under the government food estate projects announced in 2020.In the 1990s, President Suharto launched an ambitious scheme to convert vast areas of Borneo’s peatlands into rice fields. The project failed, and much of the drained landscape burned during the strong 1997–98 El Niño.See All Key Ideas JAKARTA, Indonesia — An emerging El Niño risks fueling devastating wildfires on peatland areas in Borneo earmarked by Indonesia’s government about six years ago for a flagship food estate program, environmentalists have warned. The warning comes as Indonesia braces for heightened fire risk during the current dry season.
“What we are most concerned about is the rice paddy cultivation activity that is being carried out on peatlands,” said Janang Palanungkai, who runs the Central Kalimantan office of Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi. Central Kalimantan is one of five Indonesian provinces on Borneo, a forested island twice the size of Germany shared by Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Indonesia’s meteorology agency, the BMKG, and the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have both determined that a strong El Niño is likely this year. An El Niño is declared when equatorial Pacific Ocean temperatures remain more than 0.5° Celsius above average for several months. This warmer surface water sets off a global chain of climatic reactions, including hotter and drier conditions over Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest tropical peatlands.
“There is a 50% to 60% chance of a moderate El Niño starting mid-year, and the 2026 dry season is predicted to be drier than usual,” the BMKG’s Ardhasena Sopaheluwakan said in mid-June. Previous El Niño events, such as in 1998 and 2015, triggered lasting public health and environmental disasters in Indonesia as delayed rains allowed fires on carbon-heavy peatlands to burn for months. Researchers said the fires in 2015 may have caused around 100,000 premature deaths in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Greenpeace, a global collective of independent campaigning groups, called these wildfires “man-made ecological disasters.”
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