Over the course of one summer, Indonesia lost the equivalent of 0.5 per cent of its GDP. This is the effect of the fires, almost all of which were deliberately started.
For Indonesia, 2019 was a dramatic year. The year in which thousands of fires – mostly deliberately started – blazed for months, with an intensity not seen since 2015. According to official estimates, between January and September (when they reached their peak) they reduced to ashes more than 620,000 hectares of forest, the equivalent of nine times the surface area of the capital Jakarta. With all the consequences that entails for the territory, biodiversity, citizens' health and their quality of life. Still according to data updated to September, more than 900,000 people reported respiratory problems and twelve airports were forced to suspend operations, as were hundreds of schools across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. With the emergency over, the World Bank takes stock of the damage. And the price appears extremely steep, even in economic terms.
In the eight provinces most affected by the fires, the damage recorded between June and September is estimated at 5.2 billion dollars. In the space of one summer, in other words, the equivalent of 0.5 per cent of GDP went up in smoke. Agriculture, transport, industry, commerce and the environment were the worst-hit sectors. To be precise, actual material damage stood at around 157 million dollars, while the other five billion corresponds to the business lost across the various economic sectors. Local authorities were particularly brought to their knees. Preliminary calculations indicate that the most affected province is Central Kalimantan, which suffered losses equivalent to 7.9 per cent of its GDP, followed by West Kalimantan at 6.1 per cent.
And it seems this is not the end of it. It will take at least 2–5 years for timber production and perennial crop yields to return to normal. Hence the downward forecasts for economic growth in 2019 and 2020, which according to the World Bank will slow by 0.09 and 0.05 percentage points respectively. A decline is also expected in palm oil exports, which have suffered the repercussions of the wave of international outrage and the European Union plan that will ban it from biofuels by 2030.
The palm oil industry is, in fact, among the main suspects for this disaster. For more than twenty years, arson fires have become a chronic problem, the World Bank recalls, because they are considered the cheapest and fastest method of preparing land for cultivation, or for settling disputes over land ownership. Climatic and environmental conditions do not help. Forty-four per cent of the areas affected by this year's fires consist of peatlands, where stopping the flames is considerably more difficult, and where thick, CO2-laden smoke spreads rapidly through the atmosphere.
During 2019, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry took 17 companies to court: nine of them were sentenced to pay fines totalling 225 million dollars, reports Mongabay News. Peanuts compared to the real scale of the disaster, environmentalists point out. For a point of comparison, the Bnbp (the local equivalent of our Civil Protection agency) has already spent 213 million dollars this year fighting the flames – three times the norm. Money that adds to that allocated by the Minister of the Environment and other public bodies.
The World Bank's striking estimate is, moreover, only partial. Because it does not take into account the long-term consequences that will manifest themselves on the population's health. Mongabay News cites an analysis by the NGO Madani, according to which unusually high levels of PM2.5 – the fine particulate matter that the World Health Organization links to the onset of asthma, respiratory problems and heart disease – are being recorded in at least 45 districts and cities. "This year's fires may be over now that the rains are beginning to fall, but the disaster does not end here," comments Madani's executive director, Teguh Surya. "The impacts are not only felt today but must be calculated over the next twenty years."
