Before the Peat Burns: Reframing Indonesia’s Peatland-Fire Governance from Reactive Suppression to Hydrological Prevention and Anticipatory Risk Management

Abstract

Indonesia’s recurrent peatland fires are often approached through emergency-oriented interventions implemented after fire danger has already escalated, including firefighting, water bombing, weather modification, temporary task forces, and post-fire law enforcement. This qualitative literature review reassesses that response architecture through recent evidence on tropical peat hydrology, fire behaviour, restoration, early warning, governance, health, economics, and community participation. The synthesis indicates that peat-fire risk is produced well before ignition through interacting processes involving drainage, groundwater-table recession, peat desiccation, vegetation change, drought, anthropogenic ignition, and institutional fragmentation. Consequently, effective risk reduction requires shifting the principal intervention point upstream. Hydrological restoration, canal-network management, groundwater monitoring, climate and soil-moisture information, locally calibrated decision thresholds, permanent preparedness capacity, and community-compatible livelihood systems should operate continuously rather than only during severe dry seasons. Nevertheless, the evidence does not support replacing conventional suppression altogether: firefighting, water bombing, enforcement, and emergency operations remain indispensable for residual risk. The article proposes a Hydrological Safety Envelope–Anticipatory Governance Framework integrating prevention, monitoring, trigger-based action, preparedness financing, suppression, recovery, and adaptive learning at the peat-hydrological-unit scale. The framework reframes peatland-fire policy from managing flames after ignition toward managing the ecological and institutional conditions that determine whether major fires occur.