JakartaPost-Sept 18, 2026
Aside from Sumatra and Kalimantan, wildfires have engulfed lands and forests across Papua, with the southern region of Indonesia’s easternmost island becoming a new major hot spot, including among locations of state-led food and energy estate projects. Data from the Forestry Ministry shows that South Papua saw the second largest burn scar in this year’s fire season after West Kalimantan. By late July, the total burned area in the province reached 25,838 hectares, already surpassing the 8,107 hectares damaged throughout last year. Fires in South Papua have also been reported inside concessions belonging to the Merauke food estate, a national strategic project (PSN) operated by both state-owned firms and government-approved private companies to develop rice, sugarcane and other plantations and logistic hubs in the forested province. The large-scale project, occupying 2.3-million ha of land or nearly twice the size of greater Tokyo, has been met with public opposition over high deforestation risk and an ongoing lawsuit over the alleged illegal takeover of a customary forest. Between January and August, about 60,407 ha of land had been burned inside the Merauke estate, according to independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas. The burned cluster accounted for around one-third of the total burn scar recorded across Papua. Based on the latest observation by indigenous watchdog Pusaka Bentala Rakyat, fires had engulfed parts of a 58-kilometer-long Merauke food estate corridor, spanning from near Wanam village in Ilwayab district to Muting district, according to the group’s Ambrosius Mulait. The field observation ran from August to early September, with activists documenting multiple deliberate land clearing fires allegedly to open land for rice plantations and construction of a road and an airport. Indigenous communities in the area traditionally use controlled burning for hunting, fishing and other customary practices, shaping the grassland-rich region in this way for thousands of years, according to David Gaveau, founder of the company The TreeMap that operates Nusantara Atlas. He argued the additional fire currently seen in Merauke today is connected with land clearing linked to the food estate projects:
The food and energy estate was commenced under former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration and later continued by President Prabowo Subianto, with an aim of helping the country achieve self-sufficiency in food and energy. Read more at:
