Others blame poor farmers who had hoped to plant a few crops under the jungle canopy in an attempt to recoup their losses after a year of failed crops. Certainly fire is the cheapest, easiest way to clear land for large corporations as well as individual farmers, says Schindler. Poor people use fire to clear land to plant crops so they can eat, certainly the traditional people, the Dayak tribes, have been using slash and burn methods for thousands of years. They follow the logging roads into the forest, clear some land, but the forest is not theirs. Many times they are illegal squatters.
Fire is also a useful tool in land speculation.
If villagers believe a timber or mining company will show up wanting the forest around them, they might start a fire to clear some land, do some farming and then demand compensation when the companies arrive. In his investigation, Schindler also found people set fires as revenge against timber or oil plantations they hold a grudge against. But the root of the uncontrollable fires comes from the degradation caused by the logging industry, he says. Not surprisingly, representatives from the logging industry disagree. In an interview with the BBC earlier this year, Bob Hasan, a timber tycoon and close friend of former President Suharto, admitted lighting fires in the forests but contended it was done responsibly.