The problem to the forest fires is very
complex. It is related to large scale development
for plantation by companiesand livelihood
strategies of local people. To solve the forest fires
it needs to identify the root causes of this problem.
Bompard and Guizol pointed out that the causes
of the fires are inadequate rights of local people to
land and natural resources and inadequate land
management policy (Bompard & Guizol, 1999).
Siscawati (1998) argued that the underlying
causes of forest fire such are “national forest land
use, government intervention failure in encouraging
(by subsidies) development of timber estate as
well as domestic pulp and paper, and structural
widespread corruption”. This paper argues that
poor management of natural resources; weak
environmental governance and poverty are the
underlying causes of recurrent forest fires in
Indonesia.