'If we burn, you burn too': Indonesia's worst wildfires in 11 years drive Generation Z into the streets

Protests led by Generation Z (born 1997–2012) are spreading across Indonesia as the country grapples with its worst wildfire crisis in 11 years. Demonstrators have taken to the streets under slogans including "If we burn, you burn too," demanding that the government take decisive action.

About 500 protesters gathered outside the governor's office in Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan province on Borneo island, on Friday (local time), urging authorities to address the fires and the choking haze, according to AP and Yonhap.

The crowd, made up largely of Generation Z university students, wore thick masks to protect themselves from the toxic air and assembled on streets blanketed in an ochre haze.

Carrying placards reading "Haze emergency" and "If we burn, you burn too," protesters called on the government of President Prabowo Subianto to declare a national disaster emergency and to crack down on the slash-and-burn agricultural practices widely blamed for starting the fires.

Separate demonstrations, each drawing hundreds of people, were held in Banjarmasin and Samarinda in South Kalimantan province, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, and other cities across the country.

Earlier, on Tuesday, hundreds of university students rallied in the capital Jakarta at a protest organized by the student council of the University of Indonesia, condemning the government's response and declaring the wildfire crisis "not a natural disaster, but a political one."

This year's El Niño-driven dry conditions have fueled fires across Borneo and Sumatra to their most severe level since 2015. Indonesia's Health Ministry said more than 333,470 acute respiratory illness cases have been recorded since mid-August, when the fires intensified, across seven affected provinces.

The crisis is unfolding against a backdrop of mounting economic strain. The Indonesian rupiah has tumbled amid the fallout from conflicts in the Middle East, and the stock market has plunged following a warning by index provider MSCI that it may downgrade Indonesian equities.

As public anger has grown, wildfire protests have spread to more than six cities nationwide this week.

Indonesia's Generation Z has a recent track record of political mobilization — last year the same cohort staged large-scale demonstrations against housing allowances for lawmakers, protests that fed into a broader wave of youth-led anti-government unrest that swept parts of Southeast and South Asia.

In response, the Prabowo administration has ramped up firefighting personnel from roughly 44,000 in mid-September to about 69,000, and has deployed around 50 aircraft for aerial water drops and cloud-seeding operations.

The government has nonetheless refused to declare a national disaster emergency, insisting it already has sufficient capacity to handle the fires — a stance widely seen as driven by concerns over the strain such a declaration would place on the central budget. Whether that position will further inflame Generation Z's opposition remains to be seen.