PRIME NEWS POST

The INDONESIAN, (JAKARTA) — The statement by National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo before President Prabowo Subianto, vowing to crack down on corporations that violate regulations related to forest and land fires (karhutla), marks a serious escalation in the direction of law enforcement in such cases.

The Kapolri recognizes that enforcement cannot stop at arresting the person holding the match in the field. It must rise to uncover who gave the orders, who provided the funding, who profited, or who allowed fires to spread by failing to carry out mandated prevention obligations.

The National Police’s move to re-examine corporate compliance—including the adequacy of required fire-control equipment—shows that the force is beginning to address the very heart of the problem.

Fires within concession areas do not automatically prove corporate wrongdoing, but neither can corporations shield themselves simply by claiming they never ordered the burning.

The law obliges companies to have fire-control systems, personnel, facilities, and infrastructure in place. When those obligations are neglected and fires are allowed to spread, legal accountability must still be tested.

This direction gains further strength following Bareskrim (Criminal Investigation Agency)’s prior handling of 89 police reports and the designation of 72 individual suspects linked to land and forest fires.

These figures should never be the end point—instead, they serve as the entry point for tracing the chain of interests behind those who carried out the acts on the ground.

Investigators must determine for whom the burning was done, who paid for it, who needed the land cleared, who issued the orders, and who ultimately reaped the economic benefits.

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The National Police possesses a solid legal foundation to penetrate corporate structures. Criminal liability may be directed not only at business entities themselves, but also at management, those who issued orders, and those in control.

Liability may even extend to parties outside the formal corporate structure if proven to have controlled or benefited from the criminal acts.

Accordingly, corporate structures must not become hiding places for key actors, while field workers are made the sole suspects.

Tracing financial transactions becomes critically important. Evidence in land and forest fire cases must not be limited to matches, jerry cans, or burning tools.

Payment records, land-clearing contracts, electronic communications, work orders, GPS data, hotspot reports, fire-suppression equipment inventories, and records of company responses to fires can all reveal who truly held an interest in the events.

The Kapolri’s stance also reflects professionalism, as he does not automatically label every corporation whose land catches fire as a criminal offender.

Examinations are first conducted into the methods employed, the company’s legal obligations, available evidence, and the connections between involved parties. It is precisely this kind of approach that distinguishes genuine law enforcement from punitive action driven by political pressure.

Presidential support for police action must be interpreted as momentum to rid land and forest fire enforcement of an approach that too frequently stops at the ground-level perpetrators.

If evidence shows that a company ordered, funded, profited from, or knowingly allowed fire-control obligations to go unfulfilled, enforcement must reach all the way to the boardroom and those in control.

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Land and forest fires will never be resolved if legal action keeps stopping at the hands that lit the flame. The National Police’s courage will truly be tested when investigations move from the match-holder to the interest-holder.

If that chain can be dismantled all the way up to the corporations and those who control them, the 2026 land and forest fire enforcement effort will no longer be merely a hunt for suspects—it will be a strike against the economic system that keeps land burning profitable.