Indonesia Starts Fighting Fires

Armando Siahaan, Fidelis E Satriastanti & Budi Otmansyah Jakarta Globe 23 Oct 10;

Jakarta. After complaints from neighboring countries, Indonesia is finally acting to contain forest and ground fires widely blamed for a thick haze of smoke that has blanketed parts of the region this week.

However, the country is declining immediate offers of help from Singapore and Malaysia, two countries affected by the haze, saying provincial authorities are dealing with the fires.

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said Forestry Ministry firefighters were already in Riau, in the central part of Sumatra, working with local communities to put out fires.

Riau is the province where most of the forest and ground fires are believed to be burning.

Gusti’s deputy for environmental damage control, Arief Yuwono, said that if local governments proved incapable of dealing with the fires, “then we will declare a national emergency.” 

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Finally Some Action to Contain It
Armando Siahaan, Fidelis E Satriastanti & Budi Otmansyah Jakarta Globe 22 Oct 10;

Jakarta. Indonesia is finally acting to contain a thick haze blanketing the region following complaints from its neighbors.

Officials from Malaysia and Singapore this week called on Jakarta to deal with the sources of the smoke and offered to help with the effort. The two countries have been affected by smoke drifting across from Sumatra.

“We have our own system, the BNPB [National Agency for Disaster Management], to deal with forest fires,” the deputy minister for environmental damage control, Arief Yuwono, said on Friday.

“It will be handled by the provincial government but if it’s too big then we will declare a national emergency.”

He spoke soon after Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said Forestry Ministry firefighters were already in Riau working with local communities to put out the fires.

“The fires have been occurring in Bengkalis district in Riau province and if we look at the map, it is close to Singapore,” Gusti said in answer to complaints from Singapore that smoke from Indonesia had covered the island republic in a thick haze.

Indonesian television showed a wall of gray smoke rising from plantations and forests in Sumatra, while the city of Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau, was choked with haze.

Arief claimed the sources of the fires had not yet been determined.

“We will conduct a thorough investigation into this because if it’s occurring outside forest areas then we will take legal moves,” he said.

However, it is generally believed most of the fires are the result of the outlawed practice of land clearing by burning.

Under the 2009 Law on Environmental Management and Protection, using fires to clear land is prohibited.

Despite of the law, weak enforcement in the face of a lack of funding and personnel has led to the continuing use of the practice by farmers preparing land for new crops or large plantations opening or clearing land.

The smoke could also come from burning or smoldering peat bogs, which abound in Sumatra and are hard to douse, or from burning subterranean coal seams.

Forest and ground fires are common during the dry season in Indonesia or toward the end of the season as farmers and planters begin to prepare new crops for the rainy season.

Marzuki, the chief analyst at the Pekanbaru meteorology office, said the hot spots, areas of high temperatures detected by satellite imaging, were centered in the Riau districts of Rokan Hilir, Bengkalis and Dumai.

It was smoke from these fires, he said, that was being swept by winds toward Malaysia and Singapore.

“The wind is moving at between 7 and 25 kilometers per hour from south to the north, causing smoke to fill Sumatra’s atmosphere,” he added.

Gusti said his Singaporean counterpart, Yaacob Ibrahim, had offered assistance in dealing with the fires during a phone conversation on Thursday.

Malaysia’s natural resources and environment minister, Douglas Uggah Embas, said he had also written to urge his Indonesian counterpart “to take appropriate action to mitigate the problem” and to offer help to put out the fires.

But the government has not always accepted the assistance.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said he had told his Singaporean counterpart, George Yeo, that haze was a “transboundary challenge” and that countries in the region “should be working hand in hand to address the particular challenge.”

Yeo said the haze was causing a significant increase in health problems.

“Minister Yeo informed Minister Marty that the PSI went over 100 yesterday and cases of respiratory problems including asthma had increased significantly,” the Foreign Ministry said.

A reading above 100 on Singapore’s PSI, or pollution standards index, is considered unhealthy.

Marty said Indonesia had not had a major haze problem in the past four years.

“The effort the Indonesian government has undertaken during that time has worked,” he said.

Noor Hidayat, director of forest control at the Forestry Ministry, said: “We have done our best to minimize the forest fires in those areas. But the law enforcement is weak.

“I think the law enforcement apparatus must work harder and tougher and crack down on the people who did this. Shock therapy is needed here.”

Massive forest and ground fires in Sumatra and Borneo, compounded by the El Nino weather phenomenon, cast a choking haze over the region in 1997-98, causing health and traffic hazards in several countries.

Government says haze from Indonesia,blames traditional farmers
Adianto P. Simamora and Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post 23 Oct 10;

In an about face, the government says that fires set by Indonesian farmers in Bengkalis, Riau province, are behind the haze new blanketing Singapore and Malaysia.

Most of the fires were set by farmers practicing slash and burn agriculture, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said Friday at a press conference in Jakarta.

“Singapore tends to make noise quickly if pollution levels even slightly exceed tolerable standards, even though this is still common in Indonesia,” Gusti said.

Singaporean Environment and Water Resources Minister Yacoob Ibrahim asked Indonesia to intensify actions to tackle the fires, Gusti said.

The Malaysian government also sent a complaint by facsimile, demanding that Indonesia take action to stop the fires, Gusti added.

Singapore and Malaysia both offered Indonesia assistance.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa spoke with Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo over the telephone Friday morning.

Marty said that haze was not only a problem that affected Singapore, but affected other countries as well, including Indonesia.

“Haze is not a problem that can be solved by one country alone,” Marty told reporters during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry.

It was important for all countries in the region to overcome the transboundary problem together, he said, welcoming Singapore’s offer of assistance.

Gusti said that the Environment Ministry had recorded 61 hot spots in Bengkalis on Oct. 20 but only six hot spots on Friday.

On Thursday, the Forestry Ministry rejected claims by Singapore and Malaysia that the haze came from Indonesia.

Forestry Ministry spokesman Masyud said that there should be an assessment on the source of haze since fires had also been detected in other countries, including Malaysia, on the same day.

On Oct. 19, the Forestry Ministry recorded 37 hot spots in Riau province; 19 in Myanmar; 13 in Serawak, Malaysia; and 10 in the Philippines.

Masyud said that the wind direction should be determined when trying to identify the source of haze afflicting Singapore and Malaysia.

Environmental Ministry deputy minister for environmental damage control Arief Yuwono said that a team from Jakarta would leave for Bengkalis to verify the source of the fires.

“We want to ensure whether fires occurred inside or outside forests and to ascertain if [the fires] were due to local farmers or plantations operating in the area,” he told reporters after the press conference.

Gusti said his office would take legal action if the 2009 Environment Law had been violated.

The ministry, which is the country’s lead agency for forest fires, targeted a 20 percent reduction in fire hot spots this year as part of a climate change mitigation program.

Gusti said that the ministry had reduced the occurrence of hot spots by 80 percent this year when compared to 2009.

“With the fires in Riau, the reduction of fire hot spots will still be at least 50 percent this year,” he said.

The government previously named 10 fire-prone provinces, including Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, North Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan.

At the last meeting of ASEAN environment ministers to discuss regional fires — which was held in Kuching, Malaysia, in July — Gusti said that he received a warm welcome from other officials due to the decline in hot spots.

Indonesia is the only ASEAN member state not to endorse an ASEAN agreement on transboundary haze pollution aimed reducing forest fires and combating haze pollution.

Indonesia can't fight haze alone: Jakarta Minister
Lynn Lee Straits Times 23 Oct 10;

JAKARTA: Indonesia's Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa yesterday said that controlling the land fires on Sumatra was a priority for his country, but stressed that fighting the haze could not be done by Indonesia alone.

He emphasised that the haze was a transnational problem, requiring cooperation from countries in the region.

His comments came after Singapore and Malaysia pressed Indonesia to take action on the haze. Smoke caused by small landowners burning peatland in order to grow oil palm or other crops has in recent days shrouded parts of Malaysia and Singapore.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo had called Mr Marty at 9am yesterday to express concern over the haze, and reiterated that Singapore stood ready to help Indonesia put out some of the fires in Sumatra.

His phone call followed a similar one by Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim to his Indonesian counterpart Gusti Muhammad Hatta on Thursday night.

According to the Singapore Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mr Marty thanked Mr Yeo for calling him, assured him that Indonesia would address the haze problem and added that many Indonesians in Sumatra were also affected.�

'Minister Yeo and Minister Marty agreed that bilateral cooperation had helped reduce the haze problem in the last three years and can ameliorate the current situation despite the dry weather,' the ministry said.

Meeting local and foreign reporters in the afternoon, Mr Marty said: 'What I want to emphasise is that the haze is a classic example of a challenge that is transboundary in nature and that cannot be solved simply by one country.

'Countries in the region should be working hand-in-hand in addressing this particular problem or challenge.'

However, he did not elaborate on the steps needed to be taken.

His ministry holds regular briefings for reporters on Fridays, though he does not always attend. Mr Marty turned up yesterday to talk about an Asean summit in Hanoi next week.

He also recounted his morning conversation with Mr Yeo, describing the talk as part of their regular communications.

'During the course of that general conversation, we exchanged views about developments with respect to the haze that is affecting some countries in the region. Naturally, Minister George Yeo expressed his government's concern,' he said.

He said that he had mentioned to Mr Yeo that the haze was affecting not just Singapore, but also Indonesians in Riau province.

Hundreds of hot spots had been detected throughout the province in recent weeks, although officials said the number had dropped to under 10 yesterday.

Mr Marty said this year's haze should be seen as an 'exception to the norm', noting that Indonesia had not had land fires of the current scale in the last three or four years.

This showed that the country's efforts to stamp out land clearance by burning - some of which were supported by foreign countries - had worked, he said.

'Now the fact that the haze has returned should be taken within the context of the success of the recent past,' he said. 'We must ensure that the... avoidance of such a situation becomes the norm, and the situation we have now becomes the exception to the rule.'

Mr Marty said he would also convey Singapore's offer of help to fight the fires to Professor Gusti.

He also said that in his conversation with Mr Yeo, he had compared the current haze problem to recent wildfires in Russia. In August, acrid smog engulfed the Russian capital, Moscow, after a heatwave sparked fires in forests and peat bogs outside the city which took weeks to put out.

Said Mr Marty: 'If we look at the case of Moscow, even in a metropolitan area like this it is difficult to control the fires, what more in such a vast place like Indonesia.'

More firefighters sent to battle blazes
Government officials say they will seek foreign help if necessary
Lynn Lee Straits Times 23 Oct 10;

Amid rising pressure to get the land and forest fires in Sumatra under control, Indonesian government officials yesterday stressed that they were doing the best they could, including sending more firefighters to battle the blazes.

They also said they would seek foreign help if necessary.

State Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta confirmed that the smoke had come from fires in Bengaklis regency in Riau province.

Officials from his ministry had on Thursday said that the haze enveloping the region could have been caused by fires elsewhere.

Deputy Minister for Environmental Communication and People's Empowerment Ilyas Asaad was reported by the Jakarta Post as saying that the ministry had not found any significant increase in hot spots in Riau or other provinces, while the Forestry Ministry had also rejected claims that the haze originated in Indonesia.

Yesterday, Prof Gusti said his ministry had already reached out to provincial and district authorities to get them to control the burning.

'The areas are so vast and some of our farmers are still using the traditional slash-and-burn method. We're trying to reduce the incidence of this, but it's not easy,' he told reporters.

Separately, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan noted that fires in peatland areas were especially difficult to extinguish.

Some 300 firefighters have been sent to the worst-affected areas in Sumatra, according to the Forestry Ministry's fire chief Noor Hidayat.

Many of the haze-causing fires have been started by landholders trying to clear peatland of trees, so that they can grow oil palm or other crops. The fires clear the land quickly and effectively reduce the acidity of peat soil, preparing it for agriculture, reports have noted.

But these fires not only release huge amounts of carbon into the air - contributing to greenhouse gases - but also produce a thick haze that gets blown over by prevailing winds to neighbouring countries Singapore and Malaysia.

As peat soil is made up of decomposed plant material, peat fires burn easily. They are also hard to extinguish, as they can smoulder underground and resurface.

Activists have said that while landholders could be clearing the land for their own farms, many were also paid by plantation owners to do so.

Reports have also noted that these owners could be palm oil developers looking to increase their plantation area before next year, when Indonesia intends to impose a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear natural forests.

The proposed ban is part of Indonesia's efforts to combat climate change by reducing its own emissions.

But officials and observers say that it will be hard to enforce. Even the current ban on clearing land by fire has not been thoroughly enforced in provinces far away from the capital.

'We have done our best to minimise the forest fires in those areas. But the law enforcement is weak,' Mr Noor, the forest fire chief was quoted as saying by Reuters Television.

'I think law enforcement apparatus must work harder and tougher towards people who did this. Shock therapy is needed here.'

Activists yesterday also complained that not enough information was being given to the public on the location and size of the fires.

Mr Arif Juwono, a deputy minister at the Environment Ministry, yesterday told reporters that investigations into the cause of the recent fires were still under way. A team had been sent to check and would be followed by more officials from Jakarta today, he said.

'These teams are the technical teams that will help prevent further fires and teams that will look at any possible breach of law. We will see what the results of this are, and we will find out whether the fires are in plantation areas or outside of it,' he added.

Prof Gusti, who had spoken to his Singapore counterpart, Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim on Thursday night, said Indonesia was grateful for Singapore's offer of help in controlling the fires.

But he felt Indonesia could handle the matter on its own for now, he added.

Elaborating on this point, Mr Arif said that the provinces that were prone to fires were aware that if they were unable to control the burning, they would have to ask the national body for disaster management for help.

At that point, this organisation would then assess if more resources or help from foreign countries was needed, he said.

Hotspots in Riau to blame
Straits Times 24 Oct 10;

JAKARTA - THE haze-causing hot spots in Indonesia were centred on the Rokan Hilir, Bengkalis and Dumai districts of Riau, not far across the Strait of Malacca from Singapore, an Indonesian official said.

It was the smoke from fires in these areas that was swept by winds towards Malaysia and Singapore, according to chief analyst Marzuki at the meteorology office in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province in Sumatra. Last week, that smoke caused the most choking haze in the region since 2006.

'The wind is moving at between 7kmh and 25kmh from the south to the north, causing smoke to fill Sumatra's atmosphere,' the Jakarta Globe yesterday reported him saying.

It added that Indonesian television showed Pekanbaru choked with haze and a wall of grey smoke rising from plantations and forests in Sumatra.

State Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta said that Forestry Ministry firefighters were already in Riau working with communities there to put out fires.

His deputy for environmental damage control, Mr Arief Yuwono, said that if local governments could not deal with the fires, 'we will declare a national emergency'. Yesterday, however, the haze that has hovered over parts of Johor and Malaccca for several days eased, Malaysian officials said, while sounding a note of caution as the burning persisted in Indonesia.