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Article

Assessing Collaborative Management Practices for Sustainable Forest Fire Governance in Indonesia

by
Sataporn Roengtam
1 and
Agustiyara Agustiyara
2,*
1
Faculty of Law, Khon Kaen University, 123 M.16 Mittraphab Road, Khon Kaen City 40002, Thailand
2
Environmental Science, Eötvös Loránd University, 1053 Budapest, Hungary
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Forests 2025, 16(7), 1072; https://doi.org/10.3390/f16071072 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 27 May 2025 / Revised: 23 June 2025 / Accepted: 25 June 2025 / Published: 27 June 2025
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fire Ecology and Management in Forest—2nd Edition)
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Abstract

Our research examines the dynamics of policy implementation in forest fire management and how local governments in Indonesia can successfully implement these policies. There are two main issues: first, the extent to which forest fire management practices are collaborative, which we assess by examining whether government implementation has focused on developing integrated forest fire management policies represented through collaborative networks. Second, we consider whether and how governments and other competing stakeholders move from conflict to collaboration to enable policy implementation. This research explores whether and how collaborative management can provide a foundation for successful forest fire management, particularly in Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia, an area that has experienced significant forest fires and expansion of plantations and oil palm industries. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and observations. We revealed a lack of coordination among local, central, and other stakeholders, which might result in policy “tyranny”. In order to effectively reduce the number of fires, the government needs to empower those responsible for fire prevention through law and policy. However, because forest fire management is inherently top-down and often excludes lower levels of bureaucracy, collaborative management remains challenging.

1. Introduction

Forest fires in Indonesia between 2003 and 2016 caused severe haze and extensive environmental damage [1]. Forest and peatland fires produce smoke and air pollution that has had a significant impact on humans, biodiversity, the environment, and the economy, particularly in Indonesia [2,3]. Among natural disasters, forest fires are one where human involvement may significantly impact both the cause and the effect [4]. Studies have found that tens of millions of people have been exposed to high levels of air pollution [5], ranging from “unhealthy” to “hazardous” due to of these fires [2,6]. Fires on Indonesia’s peatlands, which account for roughly half of all burned concession land, emit pollutants that are particularly harmful to human health [7,8]. The recurrence of widespread fires in Indonesia highlights the significant challenges they post to forest governance, a problem exacerbated by unsustainable land-use practices (both legal and illegal) and policy failure [9,10]. Hence, it is essential for the Indonesian government to strengthen forest fire controls through more effective, collaborative management.
Underlying the forest fire problem is the broader issues of deforestation driven by economic development. Plantation agriculture expansion by smallholders and industrial companies has been a leading cause of forest loss in Indonesia [11], even as community-based forest management initiatives have been promoted to maintain sustainable forests [12,13]. The primary driver of tropical deforestation remains the expansion of agriculture and associated infrastructure [14]. Furthermore, activities that contribute to deforestation, including land clearing fires and illegal logging, are often driven, in part, by the low profitability of sustainable forest management practices, resulting in continued forest and peatland degradation [9,15].
Indonesia’s decentralization era has further complicated forest fire governance. Decentralization has enabled some dominant local actors to tap into state systems to exploit forest resources; local officials, in turn, have often relied on personal networks and alliances (e.g., between companies and villages) to organize partnerships for forest exploitation [16]. Such dynamics create a power imbalance that breeds mistrust among stakeholders [17], potentially resulting in a top-down “policy tyranny” in forest governance, and undermining collaborative efforts. In theory, inter-organizational collaboration is an emergent process in which interdependent actors negotiate solutions to shared concerns [18]. Effective collaborative management involves shared norms and mutually beneficial interactions [19] and occurs when stakeholders (government agencies, local communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector) can advance each others’ differing interests without blaming other organizations [20]. However, aligning the many stakeholders involved in forest fire management is challenging; these actors have different purposes, capacities, needs, or mandates, which complicates the collaborative process [21].
Theoretical perspective frames inter-organizational collaboration as an emergent process in which interdependent organizational actors negotiate solutions to common concerns [22]. In inter-organizational networks and collaborative networks, collaboration is a tool for making decisions [23]. In practice, collaborative management provides strategies for assigning functions and responsibilities, such as setting management priorities, plans, procedures, and rules for joint decision-making and the review of agreements, to facilitate multi-stakeholder cooperation [19].
Local governments have strong incentives to collaborate with other stakeholders in implementing forest fire policies. Policy implementation often requires ongoing interaction, communication, and coordination that local authorities are well-positioned to facilitate. Moreover, major forest land-use actors in Indonesia, such as timber and palm oil companies and private landholders, operate outside the direct control of local governments, meaning their cooperation is essential for effective fire prevention. We focus on Riau Province in Sumatra, where plantation expansion has expanded significantly, and peatland fires are frequent. This study first examines how enhanced collaboration among stakeholders in forest fire management can improve coordination across different levels of government (through social network analysis—SNA), thereby reducing the risk of policy conflicts that contribute to forest fires. Secondly, we assess the extent to which forest fire management practices in Riau are collaborative, analyze the structure of stakeholder networks, and consider how improved collaboration might mitigate gaps in policy implementation.

2. Methods

We utilized a qualitative research design involving semi-structured interviews, direct observation, and document analysis to address our research objectives. We aimed to gather in-depth insights into forest fire management practices and collaborative efforts among institutions in Riau Province.

2.1. Study Area

We focused on Riau Province on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. It has the largest number of palm oil plantations in the country [24,25]. In 2015, palm oil and timber plantations (acacia) covered three million hectares of the province. Indeed, most of the province is a concession area. The area is primarily peatland. Figure 1 shows a map of the province and illustrates the landscape of forest resource management. The increasing number of forestland concessions and shrinking forests present challenges; local governments need to collaborate with various stakeholders and organizations within forest management networks to develop stakeholder networks.

2.2. Sampling and Data Collection

Data collection focused on key stakeholders across government and civil society: we conducted semi-structured interviews with 31 key informants from 12 local government agencies and departments in Riau Province (responsible for forest fire management under provincial government) as well as academic, civil society, and NGO representatives (Table 1). Participants were selected through purposive sampling to capture diverse perspectives on policy implementation and collaborative management. Semi-structured interviews were chosen to allow informants the flexibility to express their perspectives in detail while still covering predetermined thematic topics, thereby yielding rich and comparable data. In addition to interviews, we conducted field observations of relevant meetings and on-site activities to contextualize and validate the information gathered from interviews. We also reviewed relevant policy documents and regulations (e.g., government guidelines, decrees, and laws related to forest fires) to supplement the interview data.
Interviews were designed to capture information on each participant’s organizational role, responsibilities, and coordination mechanisms. The interview guide (see Supplementary Materials file), developed from a preliminary desk study, was organized into four thematic sections: (a) general conditions of forest fire management; (b) forest land-use changes; (c) collaborative management in forest fire response; and (d) forest fire policy implementation. All interviews were conducted in person, recorded with consent, and transcribed for analysis.

2.3. Data Processing

Various collaborative management models have been proposed in the context of network management. Such models investigate the impact of public management on performance and describe the managerial resources employed in specific structural contexts [26]. One analytical approach, social network analysis (SNA), offers a tool to identify key actors and structural patterns in collaboration networks, though complex social structure (e.g., overlapping sub-groups) can make such analysis challenging [26,27,28,29]. For instance, highly central actors (with high betweenness centrality) can act as bridges between stakeholder groups, a dynamic that SNA can quantify [29,30].
Qualitative data were analyzed using NVivo 12.2 (QSR International) for coding. Interview transcripts were coded to identify key themes related to organizational functions, activities, and coordination patterns. From the coded data, we constructed a co-occurrence matrix capturing the relationships among stakeholders and themes. We performed a hierarchical clustering analysis on this matrix to detect patterns in stakeholders’ responses (the results of which are visualized in Figure 3). The matrix was exported as a CSV file and imported into Gephi 0.10.1 (an open-source network analysis software [31]) for social network analysis. We applied network analysis techniques in Gephi to visualize and quantify the stakeholder collaboration network. This approach allowed us to identify clusters of coordinated activity and to assess the structure and centrality of the collaborative network underlying forest fire management. The network metrics (e.g., degree centrality, betweenness centrality) were used to identify the most influential actors and assess the overall connectivity within the stakeholder network.

3. Results

3.1. Forest Fire Management

Our preliminary review of documents indicates that Indonesia’s policy framework for forest fire management varies across different levels of governance. At the national level, the government has formulated National Guidelines on Forest Fire Prevention to address open burning, forest fires, and transboundary haze, and this was followed by a Governor’s regulation in Riau to strengthen coordination through provincial Forest and Land Fire Control Centers (Pusdalkarhutla). However, we found that at the regency (district) level, specific regulations and clear coordination mechanisms for forest and land fire control remain largely absent or insufficient. In other words, while broad policies exist at central and provincial levels, local governments often lack well-defined mandates and resources to implement them. This gap in the regulatory hierarchy suggests that local authorities struggle to operationalize top-down policies without additional guidance and support.
Figure 2 demonstrates the trend of forest fire hotspots in Riau Province from 2005 to 2022. The number of hotspots detected peaked in 2014 and has generally declined in recent years. For example, the number of fires spiked around 2013–2015 and then decreased towards 2022. Despite the recent decline, the prevalence of fires over the past two decades highlights the need for sustained coordination and preventative action among agencies to avoid future large-scale fire events. This finding is consistent with reports from other studies which noted severe fire episodes during the period 2013–2015 and identified Riau as one of the regions in Indonesia most affected by forest fires [32,33]. Effective collaboration at this stage is therefore essential to ensure that the downward trend in fire incidents continues.
Qualitative analysis of the interview data revealed that certain governance themes are strongly interrelated, particularly issues of governance and government communication. These themes frequently co-occurred in interview discussions on forest fire management challenges. We used hierarchical clustering to visualize these relationships. The resulting heatmap (Figure 3) shows how closely linked these concepts are. Figure 3 confirms that “governance” and “coordination” appear in the majority cluster, indicating that they have very similar value profiles across different stakeholders’ responses. In other words, our interviewees often mentioned governance and coordination issues together, suggesting that weaknesses in communication channels (such as stakeholder engagement and information-sharing) are directly undermining governance efforts in managing forest fires. For example, local government officials and community representatives frequently raised communication problems, a reflection that effective information dissemination and stakeholder engagement are perceived as essential components of good governance in this context. We also found that the themes of “land use” and “legality” clustered closely together based on their normalized value profiles. This pattern highlights that land-use planning and fire prevention are considered closely linked governance challenges by stakeholders.
The results demonstrate that fire management in Riau is highly integrated within a broader collaborative management framework. However, without effective communication and coordination, formal governance structures alone are insufficient to address the complexity of the issue.
The hierarchical clustering analysis revealed several fundamental findings. Firstly, governance- and coordination-related factors emerged as distinct clusters in the data, indicating a potential discrepancy between rule-making (governance) and information flow (coordination). Bridging this gap should therefore be prioritized to improve collaboration. Secondly, the interviews revealed several practical issues with the current system: some implementing agencies do not coordinate their roles or share information, and policy implementers sometimes disagree with the policies they are tasked to enforce. Such observations illustrate the difficulty of implementing collaborative management without effective governance and communication structures. Our findings indicate that policy implementation depends on the government’s capacity to secure agreement and coordination among numerous stakeholders. Therefore, the cluster analysis (Figure 3) shows that effective forest fire management requires governance structures aligned with robust communication channels, where stakeholders need clear roles and open lines of communication to collaborate effectively.
We assessed the extent to which the Riau provincial government was able to implement existing forest fire policies. Figure 4 shows a schematic overview of formal forest fire prevention governance structure in Indonesia (as of 2025), illustrating the distribution of responsibilities across central, provincial, and local levels. Although Indonesia’s Regulation No. 25 of 2005 established decentralized governance by designating provincial and regency governments as autonomous regions for resource management, the legislation is vague about the specific authorities of local governments in forest fire management. Our analysis confirms that this ambiguity has resulted in multiple agencies across different levels being involved in decision-making, often with overlapping duties. The period of decentralization over the past two decades introduced many new decision-makers into forest governance, creating opportunities to promote sustainable policies, but also complicating coordination. The complex clustering in our data mirror the situation; for example, references to “governor” “local government institution”, and “regent” appeared spread across different branches of the thematic dendrogram (see Figure 3), reflecting varied local capacities and their uneven integration into broader governance networks. In practice, the involvement of a large number of stakeholders in Riau’s forest fire management has sometimes encouraged bottom-up, participatory approaches [34], as local actors attempt to coordinate among themselves when top-down directives are unclear.
In Riau Province, the government has formally established a Forest and Land Fire Control Center as part of the provincial disaster management structure (as shown in Figure 3). However, our findings show a lack of parallel mechanisms to integrate civil society side contribution into this formal structure. From the perspective of non-governmental stakeholders, there is no common alliance or forum that brings together community groups and NGOs to coordinate on forest fire issues alongside government agencies. Each organization, whether a government agency, an NGO, or a community fire brigade, tends to operate according to its own mandate and area of concern, with minimal synchronized planning. For instance, we observed that provincial- and district-level NGOs concerned with forest and land fires work independently on their specific issues. However, there is little to no involvement of civil society groups in a unified government strategy. The absence of integration means that the two key stakeholders in forest fire management, the government and civil society, are not collaborating effectively, which represents a missed opportunity to utilize all available resources and knowledge.
The complexity of governance is further evident in local government institutions involved across scales. At the national level, there are four institutions that deal with forest and land fires issues: the Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, and National Coordination Board for Disaster Management. Due to responsibilities being spread across multiple institutions, provincial governments faced difficulties in identifying clear leading sectors or authority for forest fire management. This confusion is primarily due to the fact that policies are issued at different levels by different national ministries and provinces, often without cross-referencing. For example, it is unclear who regulates the number of fires and the amount of smoke that are permitted by industrial and community burning. Unfortunately, no technical guidelines, provincial regulations, or regent decrees govern burning practices. As a point for further consideration, at the regency level, however, there is not a single rule related to forest management and land fire control.
However, there is policy loss and mismanagement from the presidential to the ministerial levels. In this situation, presidential decree No. 88/2017 on land control in the forestry area strictly limits the use of restricted forest areas as plantations, while ministerial decrees No. 50/2009 and No. 49/2017 allow stakeholders to use and gain access to the forest area. This coordination creates serious implications for forest management [35]. The regent (head of regency) in Riau, for instance, has no authority to establish long-term strategic policies on forest fire management. At the same time, many existing policies have not been successfully implemented on the ground, which likewise may be the result of a top-down implementation approach that insufficiently involves local stakeholders.
A recurring problem identified in the interviews was the lack of collaboration and clarity of roles, resulting in overlapping policies and gaps in action among local governments. As responsibilities are not well coordinated, when one organization fails to fulfill its role in fire prevention or response, no other organization can quickly step in to fill the void, even if some agencies or groups theoretically have the capacity to do so. One interviewee characterized this situation as ‘unintegrated regulatory intermediary overlaps’, meaning that disjointed regulations cause certain responsibilities to slip through the gaps between agencies. For example, Indonesia’s Law No. 34/2002 on forest management planning and forest management states that governors and the regent do not have the authority to issue licenses for industrial forests use; that authority lies with the Ministry of Forestry (with local governments only providing). This centralized control over key resources, combined with uncoordinated local regulations, means that local authorities are unable to act decisively or innovatively in the context of forest fire threats.

3.2. Collaboration and Social Network Analysis

Further analysis of the stakeholder relationship network is conducted to identify the most central actors in the collaborative network and the overall structure of the network. Based on our analysis, about 12 institutions emerged as highly influential (central) in addressing land forest fires in Riau Province (Figure 5). These key stakeholders include major government agencies and a few non-governmental actors that bridge different groups. Figure 5 illustrates an idealized stakeholder network highlighting central actors and their roles in terms of network centrality measures. Actors in the blue-colored cluster have substantial power in terms of coordination, meaning they are the ones most often connecting or coordinating with others. Meanwhile, actors represented by the gray-colored nodes are those that dominate or “role over” forest management activities (for example, agencies with regulatory authority over land-use). Figure 4 thus provides a conceptual map of who should be most active and connected in a well-coordinated multi-stakeholder framework, according to both data and relevant regulations.
The actual stakeholder network we observed (Figure 6) reveals both the strength and the current collaborative practices. In Figure 6, which visualizes the network of 47 stakeholders involved in forest and land fire management at the regency level, the most influential (identified in our analysis) appear as the large red nodes in the center network. These central nodes, which include key government departments and coordinating bodies, have the highest betweenness centrality score and act as critical bridges between community-level actors, such as village organizations, and higher-level government agencies. The Riau Provincial Environmental Agency (BLH), for example, is clearly an influential institution in this network, linking local fire prevention initiatives with provincial policy. However, Figure 5 also shows that coordination authority is heavily concentrated within a small number of agencies, while many other actors remain on the periphery. Village representatives, smaller local NGOs and community groups are connected to the core network only by single, weak links. Our network metrics quantify this imbalance: the overall graph density is very low (approximately 0.28, see Table 2), meaning that only 28% of all possible connections among stakeholders exist.
Such a sparse network indicates suboptimal cooperation; the relationships that could enable a robust collaborative response to fires largely remain absent. In effect, a few actors are highly connected and play dominant roles, but broader, multidirectional collaboration is lacking. This indicates that, although some coordination structures are in place (often around central agencies), the network is far from fully integrated. Improving network density by fostering connections with currently peripheral stakeholders would likely enhance the resilience and effectiveness of the collaborative forest fire management approach (see Table 3, which lists the stakeholder acronyms).
Therefore, the specific issues of concern, based on SNA data on forest and land fire management in Riau, are the importance of communication and organizational governance in the implementation of forest land-use policies and collaborative management. Firstly, communication can help governments resolve overlapping policy issues between different agencies and thus develop a unified policy on forest fire management. Second, communication can help the government and competing interests move from conflict to collaboration. These findings offer a way to measure the efforts of the government, which has the authority to oversee forest fire management, in building collaborative management. Collaborative management is a way to encourage multiorganizational participation in order to solve the problem of forest land-use policy implementation. On the one hand, government policies seek to manage protected areas and establish rules for conservation, but on the other hand, these policies have created an opportunity to exploit protected forests. The lack of clarity as to who has authority, the local or central government, has enabled local governments to turn protected forests and nature reserves into production forests as a means of increasing revenue. In Riau Province, there are many people who have stakes in forest issues and who would benefit from being engaged in purposive and formal partnerships in which they mutually determine land boundaries, control government action, and protect forest areas from vested interests.

4. Discussion

Our findings demonstrate the importance of collaborative management in engaging stakeholders across different levels of governance in forest fire management, but it also highlights the significant challenges that impede effective collaboration. In theory, collaborative management offers a way to bring together local and central stakeholders to coordinate forest and land fire management, and our results indicate that better policy integration (alignment of policies and roles across agencies) can clarify the tasks, functions, and responsibilities of each agency to avoid overlapping authority. Similarly, our study emphasizes that many existing organizations have difficulties in implementing collaborative work, studies [36,37,38], and approaches to examining cross-scales of governance [39,40] (e.g., international, national, local) and sectors (e.g., civil society, government, companies) through Indonesia’s peatland fire events, although agencies appeared enthusiastic about collaboration.
In practice, various industry commitments and government regulations have been generated in an effort to implement effective policies over the past 15 years, one of which is the private sector’s concern about the environmental consequences of large-scale forest and land fires [41]; our research found that substantial gaps in coordination persist. However, by explaining the pattern of cooperation between the central and local governments in dealing with the fire problem, it is clear that there are still many gaps. This is not only a problem between the government and the industry but also involving the network between stakeholders, with a landscape of network intensity described in collaborative networks.
It is important to note the scope of our study in this context. The research we conducted did not cover all possible indicators of collaborative management; it focused on two key aspects: governance structure and government communication. By concentrating on these factors, we are able to identify how institutional roles (governance) and information flow (coordination) are influencing policy implementation on the ground. However, other factors (such as funding mechanism, community capacity, or technical resources) were beyond the scope of our analysis. Future studies should examine these additional dimensions to fully understand the collaborative management landscape. Nevertheless, the focus on governance and communication raises important issues, revealing that even the most basic prerequisites for collaboration, such as clear rules and effective communication channels, are still a challenge in the current practice in Riau.
One clear implication of our findings is that local governments need to strengthen their institutional capabilities to better engage in collaborative management. Following best practices in collaborative governance, local authorities in Riau (and similar contexts) could enhance their professional, organizational, and human resource capacities, as well as their planning and execution function, to meet the demands of effective collaboration. Building such capacity would help local agencies take on more active roles in coordination, rather than waiting passively for instruction from the central government. Improving the capabilities of local government staff (through training, increased resources, etc.) would enable more proactive communication, planning and response, all of which are critical for collaborative forest fire management. This approach emphasizes the forest factors that influence behavior [36,42,43].
However, communication and information dissemination mechanisms are also essential. Local governments (at district level) must play a stronger role in receiving, processing and disseminating information on land fires, as they are at the forefront of fire management. At the same time, the provincial government should act as a hub linking information flows between districts and the national level. It should ensure that knowledge and alerts are shared promptly with all relevant stakeholders. This kind of communication infrastructure would address some of the gaps identified in our results, such as inconsistent data and delayed information exchange, which currently impede coordinated action. Similar critiques have been made in other countries (e.g., Vietnam [37], Western Africa [44], Bolivia [45], USA [46], and Canada [47]), where top-down fire management approaches have struggled to integrate community-based initiatives and traditional fire management knowledge. Therefore, a well-coordinated, efficient communication system is needed to move stakeholders from working in isolation (or even in conflict) to working in collaboration. Developing such a system would enable different stakeholders to maintain alignment on objectives and actions, organizing their various fire management tasks without confusion or duplication. Our stakeholder network (Figure 6) demonstrates the consequences of the absence of such mechanisms: key actors remain siloed and peripheral actors are not engaged. An integrated communication and coordination platform would engage those peripheral actors and clarify the distribution of tasks among all stakeholders.
From a governance perspective, establishing a more complementary distribution of roles and responsibilities among stakeholders at all administrative levels is essential. In principle, fire management responsibilities should be carried out jointly by stakeholders with complementary roles. For example, central authorities could provide broad policy frameworks and resources, provincial authorities could coordinate regional efforts and cross-district issues, and regency/district authorities could execute plans on the ground and interface with local communities. When governance is structured in this way, a well-organized response to an emergency such as a forest fire can be triggered swiftly: each stakeholder knows their respective role, duty and function, and they can act in a coordinated manner. Our results reveal that Riau has not yet reached this optimal stage, but they also highlight the necessary changes to achieve it. Clarifying who does what (and at which level) would ensure that, when a fire incident occurs, there is far less confusion and a more centralized, cohesive response, despite the decentralized setting. This would require formalizing agreements and standard operating procedures for fire emergencies across agencies and levels of government.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, the complex dynamics of policy implementation for forest fire management in Riau, Indonesia, require urgent development of comprehensive policies that clearly define the function, authority, and responsibilities of stakeholders at all levels of government. First, current fire management policy tends to respond only after forest fires occur, reflecting gaps and a lack of harmonization in sectoral planning; thus, policies must be contingent for fire prevention aspects. Second, policy integration also limits the tasks and functions and clarifies the responsibilities of each agency to avoid overlapping authority. For example, a formal cross-sectoral coordination mechanism involving government agencies, community representatives, and private-sector stakeholders could be established (through joint agreements or working groups) to ensure all parties collaborate and to prevent a form of policy “tyranny” where top-down decision are imposed without local buy-in.
It is important to recognize that allocating clear tasks and roles in fire management requires a significant dedication of time and resources to stakeholder engagement and collaborative effort. Two critical areas in this regard are governance and government coordination. Developing a working mechanism (communication and coordination) of key actors in the handling of forest and land fires—as seen from Figure 6—for the coordination network of stakeholders requires an efficient and well-coordinated communication and information system which moves from conflict to collaboration. Coordination and communication can be maintained to organize varying, unambiguous tasks in fire management. Moreover, in terms of governance, forest fire management should be carried out jointly by stakeholders at multiple administrative levels, each with complementary roles and functions (from provinces to regencies, districts, and subdistricts). This means that when an emergency situation occurs, the relevant stakeholders will know their respective roles, duties, and functions in a more centralized and well-coordinated manner.
Collaborative action is therefore urgently needed; the traditional “top-down” approach to policy implementation, where the central government issues directives and lower levels are expected to comply, should be limited to providing broad guidance, standards, and support. When it comes to actual fire management on the ground, a “bottom-up”, participatory approach is required, one that maximally involves all key “stakeholders” at the local and district levels. In practice, this means empowering local institutions and communities to work more flexibly and efficiently together in creating collaborative solutions. If effectively implemented, collaborative management practices can provide a solid foundation for successful forest fire management, as long as the collaborative process is built on the principles of good governance and incorporates strong roles for local governments through integrated government communication and coordination. Achieving such a balance will ensure that forest fire policies are not only well-designed but also effectively implemented, thereby reducing the incidence and impact of destructive fires in the long term.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/f16071072/s1. The supplementary file contains a semi-structured interview guide for forest fire management. Researchers can use this guide to replicate our data collection procedures or adapt the questions for related qualitative research.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.A. and S.R.; methodology, A.A.; software, A.A.; validation, A.A., S.R. and A.A.; formal analysis, S.R.; investigation, A.A.; resources, S.R.; data curation, A.A.; writing—original draft preparation, A.A.; writing—review and editing, S.R.; visualization, A.A.; supervision, A.A.; project administration, S.R.; funding acquisition, S.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because some include informants’ names and identity.

Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the authors.

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Figure 1. Riau Province, Sumatra Island, Indonesia.
Figure 1. Riau Province, Sumatra Island, Indonesia.
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Figure 2. Trends in fire hotspots, 2005–2022, in Riau Province. Source: data modified from Sipongi website of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoFF), 2024.
Figure 2. Trends in fire hotspots, 2005–2022, in Riau Province. Source: data modified from Sipongi website of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoFF), 2024.
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Figure 3. Heatmap with dendrograms showing hierarchical clustering of key themes (rows) and stakeholder groups (columns) based on their normalized co-occurrence values. Each row of the matrix was standardized (mean = 0, SD = 1) before clustering to highlight relative patterns. The color scale ranges from higher relative values (red) to lower (yellow), and the dendrograms group together themes and stakeholders with similar profiles.
Figure 3. Heatmap with dendrograms showing hierarchical clustering of key themes (rows) and stakeholder groups (columns) based on their normalized co-occurrence values. Each row of the matrix was standardized (mean = 0, SD = 1) before clustering to highlight relative patterns. The color scale ranges from higher relative values (red) to lower (yellow), and the dendrograms group together themes and stakeholders with similar profiles.
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Figure 4. Forest fire prevention schemes in Indonesia, 2025. Source: results of analysis of laws and regulations collected from https://peraturan.go.id (e.g., Regulation No. 25/2005, Presidential Decree No. 88/2017, Ministerial Decrees No. 50/2009 and No. 49/2017).
Figure 4. Forest fire prevention schemes in Indonesia, 2025. Source: results of analysis of laws and regulations collected from https://peraturan.go.id (e.g., Regulation No. 25/2005, Presidential Decree No. 88/2017, Ministerial Decrees No. 50/2009 and No. 49/2017).
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Figure 5. Ideal stakeholder collaboration network in Riau, highlighting actors with degree centrality and betweenness centrality, 2025. Note: Blue-filled squares designate core stakeholders with a high degree of centrality, while grey-filled squares indicate more peripheral actors with lower centrality values. Also, every solid line connecting two nodes represents a collaborative relationship between those stakeholders.
Figure 5. Ideal stakeholder collaboration network in Riau, highlighting actors with degree centrality and betweenness centrality, 2025. Note: Blue-filled squares designate core stakeholders with a high degree of centrality, while grey-filled squares indicate more peripheral actors with lower centrality values. Also, every solid line connecting two nodes represents a collaborative relationship between those stakeholders.
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Figure 6. Stakeholder network in forest fire management at the district/regency level in Riau, showing results of social network analysis (node size indicates centrality, 2025).
Figure 6. Stakeholder network in forest fire management at the district/regency level in Riau, showing results of social network analysis (node size indicates centrality, 2025).
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Table 1. Details of key informants.
Table 1. Details of key informants.
Type of InformantList of IntervieweesInformants Number of
Interviewees
Government organizations (provincial, regional, and district level)Riau provincial environmental agency (BLH), regional planning agency (Bappeda), provincial legislative body (DPRD), forestry department, plantation department, provincial land agency and licensing/permitting department, district and sub-district leader.18
Academics and local civil society representativesLocal universities, environmental forum (Majelis Lingkungan Hidup) linked to the Muhammadiyah organization.8
NGOsWWF Riau office, Jikalahari, Portal Hutan, and media and community environmental initiative.5
Total 31
Table 2. Statistical data network at regency level.
Table 2. Statistical data network at regency level.
MetricValue
Vertices47
Unique edges296
Diameter3
Average distance1.68
Graph density0.28
Source: SNA statistical data, 2020.
Table 3. Stakeholder abbreviations and full organizational names used in the Riau forest-fire collaboration network.
Table 3. Stakeholder abbreviations and full organizational names used in the Riau forest-fire collaboration network.
SITER REMMilitary commandBLH KABEnvironmental agency at regional level
DAMKARFirefightersDISCIPYASpatial planning, human settlements
MAGNIFire control brigade under the Ministry of ForestryDISHUTBUNForestry and plantation department
BRIMOB POLDAArmy special forcesDINKESHealth department
BLHEnvironmental agencyDINSOSSocial service department
POL PPThe civil service police unitRSUDRegional public hospital
POM TNIMilitary Police Command of Armed Force, IndonesiaNGOsNon-governmental organizations
BMKGMeteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical AgencyBAPPEDA KABRegional development planning agency
BKSDANatural Resources Conservation CentreMPACommunity fire awareness
JMGRRiau Peatland Community NetworkPMIIndonesian Red Cross
KMPGCommunity on peatlandDPR KABRegional people’s representative council
Notes: The network diagram distinguishes cluster of actors. In Figure 5’s circular layout, red nodes with white labels denote the most central actors, underscoring their bridging roles between community-level stakeholders and government institutions. Peripheral actors in the network, such as village organizations or smaller NGOs, are only weakly connected, indicating areas where better linkages are needed.
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Roengtam, S.; Agustiyara, A. Assessing Collaborative Management Practices for Sustainable Forest Fire Governance in Indonesia. Forests 2025, 16, 1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/f16071072

AMA Style

Roengtam S, Agustiyara A. Assessing Collaborative Management Practices for Sustainable Forest Fire Governance in Indonesia. Forests. 2025; 16(7):1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/f16071072

Chicago/Turabian Style

Roengtam, Sataporn, and Agustiyara Agustiyara. 2025. "Assessing Collaborative Management Practices for Sustainable Forest Fire Governance in Indonesia" Forests 16, no. 7: 1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/f16071072

APA Style

Roengtam, S., & Agustiyara, A. (2025). Assessing Collaborative Management Practices for Sustainable Forest Fire Governance in Indonesia. Forests, 16(7), 1072. https://doi.org/10.3390/f16071072

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