Agriculture and Environment: Wood Pulp

Environmental Impacts of Production: Increased Risk of Forest Fires

Severe forest fires burned around the world in 1997 and 1998, spurred on by El Nino-related drought conditions.

In 1997-98 forest fires in Indonesia were extremely destructive. A total of 9.7 million hectares burned, with cost estimates ranging from U.S.$4.5 billion to $10 billion.

An estimated 75 million people were affected by smoke or haze. Subsequent studies identified the use of fire to clear land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations as one of the main causes of these fires. Approximately 80% of the fires originated on industrial holdings (Mattoon 1998), and roughly 100,000 hectares of plantations burned in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Acacia and eucalyptus plantations are especially susceptible to fire because their leaves have a high oil content and young trees have thin bark that is not yet fire-resistant (Barr 2001). Most Indonesian companies have poor fire prevention and suppression practices. Fires were also widespread, although not as severe, in 1999-2000 (FAO 2001b).

Burning forests are a significant contributor to climate change. A recent study estimated that Indonesia's 1997 forest fires, most of which were started to clear land for agriculture, released between 0.81 and 2.57 gigatons of carbon (Page et al. 2002).