From Reactive Fire Suppression to Risk-Adjusted Prevention: Financing Fire-Free Land Preparation in Indonesia's Peatland Landscapes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59890/ijgsr.v4i10.3Keywords:
Forest and Land Fires, Fire Prevention, Peatlands, Smallholders, Risk-Adjusted Cost-Benefit AnalysisAbstract
Indonesia's recurring forest and land fires expose a persistent public-finance paradox: fire-free land preparation can impose substantial upfront costs on liquidity-constrained farmers, while fire response and subsequent losses are dispersed across governments, communities and ecosystems. This qualitative literature review critically synthesises peer-reviewed research published from 2020 through 2026 to assess whether targeted support for pembukaan lahan tanpa bakar (PLTB) can form a defensible prevention-financing instrument. Drawing on externality theory, expected-loss appraisal and social–ecological governance, it distinguishes private preparation costs, contingent suppression expenditure and wider social damages. A thematic synthesis identifies seven interdependent findings: financing constraints, hydrological and climatic risk, conditional policy effectiveness, incompatible costing denominators, extensive external damages, spatial treatment heterogeneity and governance requirements. An illustrative break-even frontier demonstrates why gross per-hectare comparisons cannot prove fiscal savings without additional, causally attributable fire prevention. The review proposes a risk-adjusted financing framework combining shared equipment, technical extension, conditional incentives, peatland rewetting, legitimate enforcement and counterfactual monitoring
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