Indonesia: Jakarta says hot spot situation 'more under control'

Indonesia pledges to continue haze-fighting efforts even as it seeks neighbours' patience
Leonard Lim Esther Teo In Bandar Seri Begawan
Straits Times 30 Jun 13;

Indonesia's haze-fighting efforts have borne fruit, with the number of hot spots down from a high of 265 to seven last Friday, and the size of the affected area a quarter of what it was, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said yesterday.

The situation is becoming "more under control", he told reporters after meeting his Singapore and Malaysian counterparts. He said that was due to efforts in cloud-seeding and water-bombing the burning areas, and propitious weather.

"We must continue these efforts... this is a commitment by the Indonesian government to ensure that we address this problem in a comprehensive way," he said.

Some 2,800 military personnel and 3,000 civilians, along with helicopters and other aircraft, are involved in the effort.

Singapore's Mr K. Shanmugam initiated the one-hour informal meeting in Brunei so that the ministers of the three most affected countries could come to some solution before today's Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM). He termed the reduction in hot spots "substantial".

Earlier yesterday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted in a Facebook post that the number of hot spots had fallen steadily over the last few days. "This is good news! I hope the situation continues to improve over the next few weeks," PM Lee added.

The Pollutant Standards Index in Singapore has hovered within the good to moderate range in the past few days, after soaring to hazardous levels a fortnight ago.

With the area affected down from a high of 16,500ha to 4,081ha, Dr Marty issued a plea for patience, highlighting how it was not typical forest fires that were causing the haze but peatland, where fires are below the surface.

"So while you may not have actual trees burning, the smoke is still coming from... underground. So it is a bit more complicated than what you would imagine it to be, and the fire-fighting capacities are working day in and day out."

Dr Marty and Mr Shanmugam, who met Malaysia's Mr Anifah Aman in a hotel lounge without aides present, both called the session constructive and positive.

The trio also discussed ways to prevent a recurrence of the haze and how to mitigate it. Ideas will be presented to the rest of Asean's foreign ministers at today's AMM.

Mr Shanmugam said he expects a "good statement" on how Asean hopes to deal with the haze after today's meeting.

That is expected to be part of an Asean joint communique, a concluding statement traditionally issued after such meetings.

Singapore has also asked Indonesia to clarify whether Singapore- linked firms are involved in starting fires that caused the haze, after contradictory statements from officials there.

Dr Marty said investigations are ongoing and it was not appropriate to comment. Still, he said, 18 individuals had been arrested so far.

Indonesia is the only country in the region yet to ratify a 2002 Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. Dr Marty said Jakarta was committed to doing so.

"But the most important thing (is)... we have actually been in full compliance and have essentially followed up on what is required in the agreement - sharing of information," he said.

He pointed to how an upcoming meeting of environment ministers in Malaysia, where the haze will be discussed, was an initiative of Indonesia's back in 2008.

"So, while focusing on ratification, we must also bear in mind the reality that we have also been essentially implementing the agreement irrespective."

Air clears in Malaysia as Indonesian fires die out
Straits Times 30 Jun 13;

Kuala Lumpur/Jakarta - Rains and a favourable wind have cleared Malaysia of the thick, choking haze that recently sent air pollution levels to hazardous levels.

The fires in Indonesia's Sumatra island, the main source of the haze pollution, have also died down.

Satellite imaging yesterday showed just seven hot spots in Sumatra, compared to a high of 437 on Monday.

However, peatland fires which burn underground are still smoking, and soldiers continue to work alongside firemen in Sumatra's Riau province.

Indonesia, which has been carrying out cloud seeding and water bombing to encourage rain, has also continued to track down the culprits behind the illegal fires.

Police in Riau have detained 18 suspects and are tracking down at least five more, according to the Indonesian news agency Antara.

In Malaysia, most of the areas being monitored for haze were registering moderate to good Air Pollution Index (API) readings.

The poorest API readings were in Kota Tinggi in Johor and Bukit Rambai in Malacca, according to the Department of Environment.

But even these readings - 81 in Kota Tinggi and 86 in Bukit Rambai at 5pm - are a vast improvement from the past week, when readings shot to as high as 746 in Muar, causing the government to temporarily declare emergency status in two districts in Johor.

Meanwhile, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which monitors and promotes sustainable farming of palm oil, has launched its own investigation after five of its members were named as possibly involved in causing the forest fires in Indonesia.

The result of its initial probe is expected to be out by the end of this week.

Illegal burning in Sumatra typically takes place during the dry season around June to September, to clear space for palm oil plantations.

But this year's fires were unusually widespread.

For Riau's farmers, livelihood trumps haze
It will take time to change attitudes on the ground
Joyce Lim Straits Times 30 Jun 13;

All a poor farmer needs is just a match to start a fire.

That fire could spread quickly across forest plantations, especially during the dry season.

Once the land has been cleared, the farmer can start planting crops, which he will later sell to feed himself and his family.

But try telling the farmer not to light up; or tell him to pay $2,000 for excavators to clear the land instead.

Or tell him to find other means to feed his family.

He is, in all likelihood, going to ignore you.

During a recent assignment to Riau - ground zero of the haze which blanketed much of the region - The Sunday Times team met many such farmers.

They are poor, unskilled and rely on farming to feed their families.

These farmers have, for generations, been burning land to clear it for the next planting season.

They live and breathe the haze, year after year.

When I tried to tell them about the hazardous levels of the Pollutant Standards Index, I sounded as alien to them as I looked in my N95 mask.

Many do not think they are doing anything wrong, or that their routine acts have contributed regularly to the thick haze enveloping the region.

Mr Suryanto, head of the Dumai Forestry Department, told The Sunday Times that it is an almost impossible task to try and stop these farmers from burning to clear the land.

As the head of the department, Mr Suryanto acknowledges that he has the authority to issue new regulations or to change existing ones, and empower the forestry police to carry out enforcement.

But it takes more than just changing regulations or stepping up enforcement to stop the burning, he explained. Killing off the haze is as good as killing the livelihoods of these farmers.

"These poor farmers will do anything it takes to protect their livelihoods," Mr Suryanto said.

"When you have nothing, you fight with your life to protect anything and everything that can feed you and your family."

Mr Suryanto even foresees blood being shed if the authorities try to take away the land from the farmers, or chase them away.

"These villagers will unite and fight the police. Even then, the burning will not stop. They will move to another area and start burning again," he said.

The Sunday Times team witnessed such collective kampung attitude when a group of villagers approached our car because the driver refused to pay a jobless villager who helped direct traffic on a road that was partially under construction.

The situation was diffused when the driver offered the man a few rupiah.

Shuttling between the provincial capital of Pekanbaru and hot spots in Dumai and the regencies of Bengkalis and Rokan Hilir in the last two weeks, the team saw plumes of smoke rising from charred plots of lands, every few kilometres we travelled.

Such instances of indiscriminate burning did not happen only in forested areas, but right in the heart of Pekanbaru, and are an indicator of just how commonplace slash-and-burn practices are in Indonesia.

Burning is still the cheapest way to clear land here. It takes just 10 litres of diesel - costing 50,000 rupiah (S$6.40) - to clear 1ha of land.

It goes some way towards explaining why few would move to spend about 15 million rupiah - or close to $2,000 - to hire workers and rent excavators to flatten and clear a plot of land of similar size.

Local farmer Mulia Manurung, 50, said that $2,000 is more than what he earns in a year.

Life is simple for the farmers here, who do not watch television or read the newspapers. So attempts to educate and inform them about the ills of slash-and-burn through the media would be largely ineffective.

Besides, reaching them also poses some challenges for the authorities as 90 per cent of Dumai is forested, and the vast geography makes it difficult to reach these farmers who live deep in the forest, said Mr Khairul Anwar, the mayor of Dumai.

Dumai is a coastal city closest to many of the hot spots in Riau province.

But farmers with smallholdings are just one part of the problem behind the annual outbreak of fires and haze in Indonesia.

Fingers have continued to be pointed at major pulp and palm oil companies which own plantations in Riau, and at least 14 companies are being investigated by the Indonesian authorities.

Most companies refute allegations that they are responsible and claim that they follow strict no-burning policies - and demand that their contractors do the same.

But activists say that when contractors further sub-contract the work to others, including some farmers, burning is often used to clear the land as it is the cheapest and fastest way to get the job done.

Observers, green activists and analysts also charge that corporations or local farmers with deep pockets take advantage of lax law enforcement and continue with the practice of burning to clear land.

The Sunday Times team in Riau spotted at least three such plantations in Dumai - one about 5,000ha in size.

This is despite Mayor Khairul saying that "there are no oil palm plantations in Dumai".

"If there are any," he added, "they are illegal."

Yet the owner of one such illegal plantation disclosed that he has been operating his 5,000ha plantation for the past five years.

A state of emergency was declared in Riau recently by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The initial efforts of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) to put out the fires in Riau province appeared lacklustre, with just three helicopters, a Casa aircraft and one Hercules C-130 used for cloud-seeding and water-bombing operations.

But the efforts, including increased deployment of personnel on the ground and stronger enforcement, picked up pace following the Indonesian leader's apology for the haze.

Given the vastness of the area, and the scale of the problem, it is going to take considerable time and resources before real and effective changes are seen on the ground.

Farmers need to be supported with an alternative to burning, perhaps with subsidies for fertilisers or to buy the equipment they need to clear the land. Similarly, the large plantations need to step up checks and enforcement of practices, including and especially by their contractors.

In the meantime, Singaporeans, like others in the region, should learn to be better prepared when the haze inevitably returns again.