Indonesian fires hit indigenous peoples the hardest

Wildfires have raged over the forests of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, for over a month now, and continue to this day. Amidst the haze and smoke, the indigenous Dayak people have been suffering from destroyed farmland, a public health crisis, and disrupted sacred rituals tied to the land they consider a spiritual "mother."

"For us, the land isn't just economic. It's our mother — the one who gives life," says Armandus, a Dayak man who has lived in West Kalimantan his entire life.

Economically, smoke from the fires has blocked sunlight needed for farming, slowing crop growth and causing failed harvests. Other forest products that many Dayak people rely on for income, including rattan, damar resin, wild fruit, and vegetables, have burned along with the ecosystems that sustain them. Local wildlife like fish, wild boar, and deer populations have died off by the tons, poisoned by smoke or driven off by the fires.

Other than the fires, a prolonged dry season has exacerbated these effects. “The ground is so dry that throwing out a cigarette bud could start a whole fire,” Armandus said. “Even the largest rivers have run dry. You can now play football on the river beds.” 

The fires have also caused rising cases of coughing, eye irritation, and respiratory illness. “The haze that turns yellow contains PM2.5, an environmental pollutant that is 10 times finer than human hair. It doesn't just cause respiratory infections; it enters the bloodstream, which can trigger heart disease, stroke, even cancer,” said Daurie Bintang, a volunteer and activist working on the frontlines of the fire response.

But access to healthcare is uneven. For those living in remote villages, the cost and distance of emergency transport to healthcare centres in big cities are large barriers. "Some people have to travel to the district centres to buy masks and medicine. The transport there is already expensive, so people think - why bother buying a mask if it's that far and costs that much?" said Armandus.

Volunteers have stepped in to help, often at huge personal risks. “Some of us have gotten sick, some haven't survived,” said Daurie. Since 2015, Daurie's team has built “Smoke-free safe houses”: air-purified rooms set up in churches, campuses, and health centres, filtering out PM2.5 particles and offering residents oxygen and nebuliser treatment for asthma and respiratory illness. 

But beyond the physical damage, the fires also affect many spiritual aspects of Dayak identity. "It's not only a pollution of the environment, but also a pollution of the spiritual harmony between people and nature," said Armandus. "The Dayak people cannot be separated from the forest or nature," Armandus continues. All aspects of Dayak culture, from dance and tattoos to oral literature, express an inseparable relationship between the Dayak and nature. 

But now, whole villages are being burned to the ground, with peatland fires even burning cemeteries. "The haze is often not considered a “real” natural disaster, because it’s not like an earthquake or a flash flood, where victims are visible right away,” Daurie said. “With haze, people die slowly — first it's respiratory infections, or their asthma flares up, then their condition worsens until they end up in the hospital, and that's when they die.'"

Armandus, a Catholic priest, continues to pray for a better future in Kalimantan. "Kalimantan is land that is blessed by God. A heaven on Earth that has been destroyed by humans."