Fire Prevention Collaboration With Fire Free Village Programme (FFVP)
Fire and haze is a complex issue that no one party can solve alone. Collaboration and sharing among forestry and agricultural companies, NGOs and concerned partners is essential to achieving a lasting solution to the problem of fire and haze.
Fire Free Village Programme Technical Workshop
Launched in 2015, the community-focused Fire Free Village Program (FFVP) is a multi-prong fire prevention initiative that seeks to educate, enable and empower villagers against the use of fire for agricultural purposes. Based on APRIL Group’s results, it achieved a 90 per cent decline in fire incidence among participating villages in 2015 compared to 2014 figures.
The program’s independent review has been conducted by Carbon Conservation and results of the audit showed high success in 3 indicators: reduction of burnt areas, positive engagement with communities, and contribution to long term economic sustainability of local communities.
To foster wider collaboration among the many stakeholders in Indonesia, a number of leading forestry and agriculture companies, NGOs and other partners have come together to form the Fire Free Alliance (FFA). This is a voluntary platform to collaborate on fire prevention through community engagement and also on fire preparedness and suppression in Indonesia.
Founding members include APRIL Group, Asian Agri, IDH, Musim Mas, PM.Haze, Rumah Pohon and Wilmar. Members have jointly committed to work together and share knowledge, information and potentially, resources to roll out fire prevention initiatives based on APRIL Group’s Fire Free Village Programme (FFVP), and also to enhance fire monitoring, detection and suppression.
FFA will facilitate the sharing of lessons and best practices on how partnerships and engagement with the communities can help protect forests from the high risk of fires. Members will build on the Fire Free Village Programme model that encourages a root-cause, preventative, holistic approach to a decades-long issue that has significant social, political, economic and environmental implications.
The inaugural meeting and technical workshop were held in Jakarta on February 29 – March 1 and the members are working through the scope, focus and specific commitments to be put in place.
Collaboration is key in finding a lasting solution and forestry and agricultural companies, through the FFA, will work together with the communities, civil society groups and government in scaling-up the implementation of this fire prevention program.
