Indonesian Ministry: No more haze in Riau

Antara 25 Oct 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Rain has helped extinguish forest and plantation fires in Riau Province, and cleared haze from the air, an official said.

"Thanks to the rains and efforts to extinguish the fires, the sky is now clear," Arief Yuwono, deputy for environmental affairs minister in charge of the climate change and environment damage control, here Monday.

Arief Ywono and his team from the environmental affairs ministry last Saturday had visited Bengkalis, Riau Province, to personally see the hot spots which had caused haze blanketed up to Singapore and Malaysia.

The worst haze had been reported particularly on October 19 and 20, 2010, and had crossed to the neighboring countries.

The ministry`s official said his team was investigating a possible violation which had caused the fires and promised to bring to justice those responsible.

The Pekanbaru meteorological and geophysics office reported that there were only 6 remaining hot spots on Sumatra Island, including two in Riau on Sunday (Oct 24).

The environmental affairs ministry`s data showed that there was a decrease of 80 percent of hot spots in Ria province this year compared to last year`s.

During the period of January-October 2010, there have been 1,606 hot spots in Riau Province, and the highest is in October with 517 hot spots.

Meanwhile, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan in Bandarlampung on Sunday (Oct 24) said that the haze was caused by fires in oilpalm plantation areas.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo phoned his Indonesian counterpart, Marty Natalegawa, on Friday morning (Oct 22) to express his country`s concern about the worsening haze situation in Sumatra.

In his phone call, Yeo also reiterated Singapore`s immediate readiness to help Indonesia put out some of the fires in the island, the Singapore Foreign Ministry said in a statement.(*)

Haze-Covered Riau Sees Spike in Health Problems
Budi Otmansyah Jakarta Globe 26 Oct 10;

Pekanbaru. The haze that has blanketed the Riau capital, Pekanbaru, for the past two weeks has resulted in an almost 2,000 percent rise in the number of respiratory ailments, a local health official said on Monday.

Napiri, who heads the Epidemic Mitigation Division at the Pekanbaru Health Office, said there were only 10 patients with respiratory tract infections before the haze hit the city.

“But in the last two weeks, there have been at least 197 people suffering from respiratory tract infections because of the haze,” he said.

He said he obtained the data from 10 community health centers, or puskesmas , adding that most of those affected were children under the age of 5.

The patients complained of difficulty in breathing, dry and painful or itchy throats, and coughing. Last year, 2,000 residents in Dumai city reported haze-related respiratory problems.

Ernawati, head of the health office’s Disease Control and Environmental Hygiene Division, said they had distributed 7,500 masks to Rokan Hilir, Bengkalis and Dumai districts.

The three districts have been the most badly affected by the thick haze blamed on forest and ground fires.

“We are still short some 10,000 more masks and we have asked for additional supplies from the central government,” Ernawati said.

Heavy rain in the province over the last few days has helped put out most of the fires, resulting in a thinning of the haze.

Edi Sukiatndi, head of Pinang Kampai Airport in Dumai, said visibility had returned to normal.

“Visibility [for flights] is now very good. Rains have thinned out the haze, if not made it disappear altogether,” he said.

The haze has been blamed on the illegal practice of burning land to clear the way for plantations.

Authorities have been unable to curtail the practice due to lack of funds and manpower.

Hot spots: Imagine five Toa Payoh towns burning
Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja Straits Times 26 Oct 10;

BENGKALIS REGENCY (RIAU PROVINCE): The road from the provincial capital Pekanbaru to the coastal town of Dumai cuts through kilometres of scorched land. An acrid stench fills the air, and faint crackling sounds can be heard in some areas, suggesting that the dense peat soil is still smouldering below the surface.

Two weeks after raging fires erupted across Riau province, the landscape remains largely charred, the expanse of black broken only by the odd patch of greenery that had been spared the flames.

The provincial authorities estimate that over 5,000ha of land in Riau caught fire this year - equivalent to more than five times the size of Toa Payoh town.

This is not entirely uncommon. Despite efforts to ban the slash-and-burn method of farming, the practice has continued relatively unabated.

The impact of burning is lessened if the rains arrive soon after the fires are started. But this year's spate of dry weather fuelled the fires, which in turn raised a blanket of smog and haze that blew over to Singapore and parts of Malaysia, prompting their governments to complain to Jakarta.

The fires have since been mostly put out by the local authorities - and a bout of rain over the weekend.

But residents in Riau are still complaining of ailments brought on by the smoke, including shortness of breath and chest pains.

'This is the worst haze we have experienced and I am worried for my children,' said oil palm plantation worker Zainar, who, like many Indonesians, goes by just one name.

The 43-year-old father of two lives just 30km away from two villages - Tanjung Leban and Sepahat - where the fires were especially bad. A mix of small plots owned by local farmers and larger plantation concessions owned by big conglomerates dot the area. Oil palm is the prevalent crop.

When The Straits Times visited yesterday and the day before, the villagers interviewed were unable to pinpoint the source of the fires.

Some said that farmers who wanted to clear their land before the coming planting season had started some fires, as it was the cheapest, quickest way of clearing trees. But the hot, dry weather had fanned the flames, and the fires had spread uncontrollably to other estates, burning down countless oil palm trees and ruining livelihoods in their wake.

Unemployed youth Dedi Ciputra, 19, described the fires as 'scary'.

He can still recall the panic that ensued when orange flames and thick smoke filled his friend's oil palm estate.

'We had to use water pumps to put out the fires... but the plots further away from the water source kept burning, as the hose was not long enough to reach them,' he said.

His friend, fertiliser factory worker Sapi'i Ibrahim, 20, said he skipped four days' work to help his family put the fires out.

'Part of our estate has been flattened and the trees gone. Someone near here cleared their land by burning, and they were the ones who started this fire,' he said, his tanned face hot with anger.

Ms Nurhayati, 40, was among those who lost almost everything. At least 190 of 200 oil palm trees on her land were burned to the ground. Her plantation was only a year old, she lamented.

'One of my neighbours started the fire. But I don't know for sure. Even if I do know, what can I do?' she said, her face downcast as she continued to plant cassava on the edges of her ruined land.

She said she had followed the instructions of the local authorities who told her that burning was banned.

'We were told not to burn anything, not even trash or dead leaves. We were told that if we burn, the police would come,' she said.

Indeed, Indonesia has had a national no-burn policy for years, but some areas still have local by-laws that allow farmers to clear land by burning. The national law itself has been poorly enforced in far-flung villages.

Activists also allege that big-plantation companies had slyly urged smaller landholders to burn their land, so that they could take the fall if the police came around.

Ms Syamsidar of the World Wildlife Fund in Riau said the burning practice is likely to continue as long as the demand for oil palm, a lucrative crop, continues to rise.

'Some village heads have even given away land - which is in the forest - to satisfy this demand for oil palm cultivation. This is against the law,' she told The Straits Times.

Motorcycle repair shop owner Indra Mardanil, 28, said that farmers had also found ways to circumvent the law. Well aware that they could be thrown in jail for burning their land, some had turned to a practice known as 'partial burning'.

'They build ditches around the land and fill it with water. Then after a day of burning, they use the water to put the fires out, and then bring in an excavator to flatten the land,' said Mr Indra, who lives down the road from Sepahat village.

Mr Efrizal, 31, confirmed the practice - having operated an excavator on some plots before. 'This also helps to cover the burnt stumps of trees, so that the authorities don't realise what has happened,' he explained.

But this method does not always work, especially since peat fires continue burning and are hard to put out.

Much of the ground here contains peat soil, which is made up of decomposed plant material and burns easily, often smouldering underground.

With no rain falling in the area yesterday, fires began to re-emerge in some areas, forcing fire engines to cut through curtains of smoke as they raced to tackle the flames.

For plantation worker Miswan, 38, who lives near Sepahat village, it meant yet another round of suffocating smoke.

'I've been having chest pains for the past week even though I've been wearing a face mask daily,' he said with a grimace. 'I don't know how much more I can take.'