ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA: CASE STUDY OF FOREST FIRES 1 Wilda Prihatiningtyas Faculty of Law, Airlangga University Indonesia wilda@fh.unair.ac.id 2 Zuhda Mila Fitriana Faculty of Law, Airlangga University Indonesia zuhda.mila92@gmail.com 3 Sophia Kusumawardhani Faculty of Law, Airlangga University Indonesia socca.sophia@gmail.com Abstract— Forest is recognized playing a crucial role in Earth’s life circle, specifically in terms the existence of human beings. As year goes by, the area of forest has been decreased significantly due to deforestation. Human beings claims that they need wider space area to live, build a house and run a factory or create a plantation to support businesses. They intentionally fires some forest areas without eco-sustainability consideration. In Indonesia, particularly, the cases of forest fires have been considered at critical level. To add, most of forest fires cases are done intentionally by the suspects. Those actions thus negatively impact a massive scope of ecosystem. Specifically speaking, it is not forest fires that brings drawbacks to the ecosystem, but the haze itself. The massive dark haze as a result of forest fires certainly pollutes the air which causes some breathing system-related diseases. Simply said, the disadvantages of forest fires have been violating human beings welfare (against humanity) and therefore be considered as a criminal action. Globally speaking, intentional forest fires have been ruled under criminal code in some countries such as Canada and Australia. Moreover, in attempt to overcome forest fires issues, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) provides a guideline for national legal drafters regulating forest fires law. Accordingly, those who are accused by criminal codes will be punished pursuant to criminal penalties regulated. In the States of Victoria (Australia), for example, criminal penalties of intentional forest fires (arson) have been effectively sentenced. From 2007-2012, 73 people were sentenced in custodial type by judges. On the contrary, although Indonesia has been regulated criminal penalties for intentional forest fires actors, they seem less powerful and effective in practice. Recently, on July 2016, Riau’s forest fires case was intentionally dissolved by Indonesian National Police Officer. This fact thus raises an issue as to whether Indonesian Criminal Penalties for intentional forest fires actors have been effectively applied. This research aims to discover and solve the aforementioned issue. As a positive attempt, authors expects that this research will provide some recommendations to create more effective sentencing systems for the suspects. Authors will use sustainable forestry principles. In the end, Authors are expecting Indonesia will be able to overcome its forest fires cases effectively and more efficient. Keywords— Law Enforcement; Forest Fires. I. INTRODUCTION Forest and/or land fires are considered as one of potential threats for sustainable development due to its direct devastating impacts towards ecosystem, carbon emission, biodiversity, human health, economy sectors and global climate.[1] Due to the urgency of carbon emission (considered as trans-boundary haze disaster), South East Asia Countries (members of ASEAN) signed an Agreement of trans-boundary haze on June 2002 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Forest and/or land fires and its haze disaster becomes the utmost priority of the Indonesia Forestry Department due to the fact that those are happened in almost annual basis. In 1997-98, the massive fires in Indonesia were on international headlines. As many foreign bodies were involved to extinguish the fires and caused a large amount of carbon emission, it was stated as the worst environmental disaster in century.[2] Five years after, regardless the significant awareness to prevent, lessen, and press the fires problems, Indonesia experienced high level of haze pollution reached between August-October 2002. Moreover, June 2013, trans- boundary haze problem affected Singapore and Malaysia as a result of land and/or forest fires in Sumatera and Borneo, Indonesia. Recently, in 2015, the massive fires and haze disaster has put Indonesia on International Headlines, once again. Between 2011 and 2016, more than 300,000 Ha of forest was burnt across Indonesia, reported by Ministry of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia. Central Borneo was placed at the first province which lost its forest in approximately 200,000 Ha alone in 2015, followed by South Sumatera which lost its 30,984 Ha area of forest.[3] Having observed, after 20 years, this problem is still far from solved in spite of a huge number of studies done by environmentalists. Policies ambiguity, less-environmentally-educated citizens, 296 Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 131 International Conference on Law, Governance and Globalization 2017 (ICLGG 2017)