Activist says Kalimantan fires are intentional, set by agricultural corporations

Indigenous activist and filmmaker Kynan Tegar spoke on the Mongabay Newscast about fires in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. She said the fires are intentional on the part of agricultural corporations. Mongabay reported that about 48,000 hectares (about 119,000 acres) of land have burned so far this year.

A commentary published by Mongabay on the same day gave a larger figure for Indonesia. Its author wrote that at least 1.5 million acres (over 607,000 hectares) of land burned in Indonesia through the first half of this year, according to recent reports, and that the current toll may be well over 2 million acres (more than 809,000 hectares). The podcast figure was reported in the context of fires in Kalimantan; the commentary figure was for Indonesia. The commentary author works at the Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force.

Kynan said the process leading to the fires began around the 1970s, when the New Order regime of Suharto leased land as concessions to companies. She said these include logging, palm oil concessions and gold mines. She said corporations have drained more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of peatland, and that decreased access to freshwater for Indigenous and local communities is an impact receiving less attention, made worse by climate change and El Niño.

Kynan said wildfires have been happening since July. She released a spoken-word music video in 2024, "Earth Defender," about her community, Sungai Utik, whose people have defended the land for more than 100 years. She said the narrative states that every 48 hours an Earth defender loses their life protecting land, forests, ecosystems and families.

Kynan, who is a transgender woman, said the Indonesian president's decision to designate the "dissemination of LGBTQ culture" as a nonmilitary state threat affected her advocacy, and that it made her second-guess how much she can speak up. She said the Indigenous People's Bill, which promises legal recognition to customary lands, has been in parliamentary limbo for 16 years. She said she does not see elements in it that will redress the historic inequality Indigenous people have faced.

The commentary author wrote that in October 2006 they helped locals fight fires in Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan with brooms, backpack pumps and hoses connected to hand-dug water wells, working with the NGO Friends of Nature, People and Forests, including its Kalimantan program manager Basuki Santoso. The author wrote that those fires were driven by El Niño-induced drought, slash-and-burn agriculture and other land clearing, and the grass-fire cycle, in a weak El Niño year. The author wrote that experts say a Super El Niño is now under way, and that a recent report found a correlation between the severity of an El Niño event and the intensity of the following year's fire season. The author also wrote that a two-day GCF Task Force technical exchange with 100 participants from around the world was moved at the last minute from West Kalimantan to Bogor, Java, because of the ongoing fires, and that travel was delayed by the Anak Krakatau volcano eruption.