When Malaysians see the Indonesia haze again, the same question comes up: how is this still happening after decades of warnings, satellite monitoring and regional agreements?
The answer is not simply hot weather.
People start many of the fires. Some use fire because it remains one of the cheapest ways to clear land for agriculture. Once those fires reach dry peat, they can become extremely difficult to control.
But the bigger story starts before anyone lights a match.
It starts with land, money and who benefits after the land is cleared.
Clearing land mechanically costs money.
Landowners or businesses need workers, machinery and transport to remove vegetation. Burning can clear land much faster and at a lower cost.
Researchers studying Indonesia’s fire problem have documented fire use by smallholders, local actors and commercial interests.
That does not mean every fire comes from a plantation company.
Some fires happen during land disputes. Others start where communities and concession holders have overlapping claims. Contractors and smaller operators may also work inside larger concession areas.
But the financial incentive is straightforward.
If burning costs less than proper clearing, someone has a reason to take the risk.
Indonesia has vast peatlands, especially in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Healthy peat stays wet. Problems begin when people drain it for agriculture or plantation development.
Dry peat catches fire easily.
The fire can then move below the surface and continue smouldering even after flames disappear above ground.
That produces huge amounts of smoke.
When prevailing winds carry the smoke towards Malaysia or Singapore, a local land fire becomes a regional haze problem.
By the time peat is burning, firefighters are already dealing with the final stage of a much bigger issue.
Indonesia already restricts land clearing by fire, with limited exceptions for certain traditional practices.
So the problem is not simply a lack of laws.
Enforcement has struggled with unclear land boundaries, overlapping claims, limited resources and poor coordination between agencies.
A satellite can show authorities where a fire is burning.
It cannot immediately tell investigators who started it, who ordered the clearing or who ultimately benefits from the land.
That gap makes prosecution difficult.
In one documented 2016 case in Riau, government inspectors collecting evidence on burned land inside a palm-oil concession faced detention and threats.
In another investigation involving suspected illegal peat conversion, officials could not enter concession land.
These cases do not represent every investigation, but they show the challenges authorities can face on the ground.
Indonesia’s own Corruption Eradication Commission, the KPK, has identified corruption risks in natural-resource and palm-oil licensing.
Its studies have highlighted weaknesses in licensing, monitoring and land governance that can create opportunities for bribery and abuse of authority.
Indonesia has also prosecuted corruption cases involving regional officials and plantation or land permits.
That matters because land licences can carry enormous economic value.
A permit may unlock thousands of hectares for development. A zoning decision can increase land values. A technical recommendation can decide whether a project moves forward.
This does not mean every plantation licence involves corruption.
But documented corruption inside the system can make an already difficult enforcement problem worse.
Corruption is not the only governance issue.
University of Malaya researcher Helena Varkkey has studied political and business relationships in Indonesia’s plantation sector.
Her research argued that patronage relationships could influence plantation licensing and environmental enforcement.
That helps explain why the haze problem cannot always be reduced to one person starting a fire.
Behind a piece of land may sit concession holders, contractors, investors, local officials and parent companies.
The person holding the match may not be the person making the most money from the land.
CIFOR research into Indonesian land transactions found that clearing land can create significant economic value.
That value does not always go to the person doing the burning.
Land brokers, village-level actors, local elites and others involved in transactions may also benefit.
This creates a simple problem.
If illegal land clearing can produce a large return while the expected cost of punishment remains small, the incentive does not disappear.
The smoke may last for weeks.
The land can generate income for years.
Malaysia and Singapore usually appear in haze coverage as victims.
That is true. Both countries suffer when smoke crosses the border.
But their historical commercial links to Indonesia’s plantation economy also matter.
A peer-reviewed 2012 study by Helena Varkkey reported that Malaysian and Singaporean interests at the time held more than two-thirds of Indonesia’s total oil-palm plantation area.
The figure came from an earlier estimate cited in the study and should not be treated as today’s ownership structure.
Still, it shows how regional the plantation business had already become.
Malaysian companies invested in Indonesian plantations, while Singapore became an important regional base for plantation groups, commodity businesses and corporate structures operating across Southeast Asia.
So the land may sit in Indonesia while some of the capital, ownership or financing comes from elsewhere.
Transparency International and its partners have documented Indonesian plantation and land cases involving foreign commercial interests.
One Transparency International investigation reported that money used in a bribery case involving an Indonesian regional election flowed from a plantation-permit deal involving a Malaysian firm.
This was one specific documented case.
It does not suggest that Malaysian plantation companies generally operate this way.
But it shows why the haze cannot always be framed as Indonesia acting alone while neighbouring countries simply watch from the outside.
Capital and commercial relationships cross borders too.
Singapore introduced its Transboundary Haze Pollution Act in 2014.
The law allows Singapore to pursue entities whose overseas activities contribute to haze pollution inside Singapore.
After the severe 2015 haze, Singapore’s National Environment Agency issued legal notices involving six Indonesian companies associated with concession areas where fires had occurred.
In its 2021 parliamentary update, Singapore said it had closed two investigations while four remained open at that time.
The episode shows how difficult these cases can become.
Authorities may know where a fire occurred, but proving legal responsibility across landowners, contractors, subsidiaries and borders takes much more work.
To understand why we keep seeing the Indonesia haze again, look at the wider chain.
It can involve:
Indonesia remains responsible for enforcing Indonesian law on Indonesian land.
But the commercial system built around that land extends beyond Indonesia.
ASEAN already has the Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution.
Indonesia has tightened peat protection, improved fire monitoring and strengthened prevention efforts. Malaysia and Singapore also cooperate on hotspot monitoring and regional responses.
Those measures have helped.
The situation today is not identical to the worst years of the 1990s or 2015.
But regional agreements cannot remove every financial incentive on the ground.
A satellite cannot stop corruption.
An ASEAN agreement cannot settle every disputed land title.
A sustainability policy means little if nobody checks whether suppliers follow it.
Firefighters also arrive near the end of the chain.
By then, someone may already have drained peat, cleared vegetation or failed to enforce the rules.
Because the haze is the visible part of a much bigger problem.
The important questions start earlier.
Who controls the land?
Who wants it developed?
Who issued the permits?
Who financed the project?
Who cleared the vegetation?
Who monitored the concession?
Who bought the commodities?
And when someone broke the rules, did authorities actually punish them?
Those questions matter more than simply asking who lit the fire.
The next time Malaysia sees the Indonesia haze again, the better question may be:
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