Responding to the issuance of Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 11 of 2026 on Strengthening Enforcement of the Ban on Land Clearing by Burning and the Control of Forest and Land Fires, issued on August 30, 2026, Franky Samperante, Director of the Pusaka Foundation, said that local wisdom must not be positioned as the primary source of the forest and land fire problem.

He said the cumulative requirements under the Presidential Instruction—including proving that a practice has been carried out for generations, limits on the size of areas, restrictions on locations, and government recommendations—must take into account conditions at the local level. This includes Papua, which is home to diverse Indigenous communities and customary land management systems.

“We must not allow communities that have not yet received formal recognition from the state to instead be burdened with administrative obligations to prove practices that have been carried out for generations, while issues involving concession governance, large-scale land control, forest and peatland protection, and the accountability of permit holders are not subject to equivalent oversight and law enforcement,” Franky said in a statement on Saturday, September 19, 2026.

He stressed that efforts to address forest and land fires must strengthen communities as part of the solution and respect customary territorial management systems, rather than making local wisdom the primary target of restrictions.

“Policy approaches must also take Papua’s ecological and social characteristics into account so that forest and land fire control efforts do not instead increase pressure on Indigenous territories and the rights of Indigenous Peoples,” he said.

Meanwhile, Adam Putra Firdaus, Head of the Forestry and Biodiversity Division at the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), said that several provisions in the Presidential Instruction concerning forest and land fire management appear to position concession holders as partners in fire prevention and control.

This can be seen, among other things, in the requirement to provide excavators and the directive for the Minister of Forestry to facilitate the mobilization of excavators to forest areas in support of fire prevention and control efforts.

He emphasized that forest and land fires are fundamentally a governance issue, rather than merely a technical problem concerning the availability of firefighting equipment and infrastructure. Concession holders must also be positioned as responsible parties with an obligation to protect their licensed areas and must be held accountable when fires occur.

“This Presidential Instruction is one form of response to the massive forest and land fires that have occurred. However, the government must not forget that these fires indicate fundamental problems in governance,” Adam said.

He noted that, to date, the forestry regulatory framework has largely focused on establishing certainty over forest-area status and forest utilization, relying heavily on the granting of large-scale permits. Going forward, the direction of forestry regulations and policies needs to place greater emphasis on forest protection, prevention and monitoring, as well as restoration as part of law enforcement.

“In the context of forest and land fires that have already occurred, the government must carry out transparent law enforcement against corporations whose licensed areas have burned. At the same time, the government needs to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of permits in the forest and land sectors so that efforts to address forest and land fires do not stop at deploying equipment, but genuinely promote improvements in governance as well as the protection and restoration of ecosystems,” Adam concluded.