Indonesia: South Sumatra gives up on haze despite help

Ansyor Idrus, The Jakarta Post 16 Oct 14;

The South Sumatra administration seems to be losing hope as all its efforts to resolve the haze emitted from its land have been fruitless.

“The only hope is asking Allah for rain,” South Sumatra Governor Alex Noerdin told reporters in Palembang on Wednesday.

Alex admitted that his administration was overwhelmed and had given up trying to extinguish fires on 7,000 hectares of peatland in nearby Ogan Komering Ilir regency, which were producing the haze that had blanketed Palembang.

He said it would need rain for seven consecutive days to douse the fires in the peatland.

Thousands of residents performed shalat istisqa (Islamic prayer to ask for rain) on Tuesday in a desperate effort to tackle the haze. Hours after the prayer, light rain reportedly fell in several areas in the city, slightly reducing the density of the fog.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has deployed nine helicopters to extinguish a number of forest fire points on peatland across the country.

“The choppers have been deployed to water bomb hot spots which are difficult to reach for the Manggala Agni fire-fighting unit,” said BNPB chief spokesman Sutopo Purwo in Jakarta on Wednesday.

He added four helicopters had been deployed to South Sumatra, three to Central Kalimantan and one each to Riau and West Kalimantan.

BNPB has also conducted cloud seeding to create artificial rain to minimize the number of hot spots.

“We have carried out several measures, including weather modification, direct fire fighting and water bombing from aircraft,” said Sutopo.

He added that to overcome the forest and peatland fires, the BNPB and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) had seeded clouds in Kalimantan on Sept. 18 and in South Sumatra on Sept. 21 from an Air Force Hercules aircraft.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) had also deployed 2,200 personnel, backed by 1,050 police personnel, to assist the Regional Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) and Manggala Agni to fight the fires in September.

Meanwhile the Bengkulu Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) forecaster, Diah Novita Astuti, said on Wednesday the haze covering the city for the past three days was still categorized as safe for people’s health.

However, she added, members of the public had been urged to remain vigilant by wearing masks if they wished to be outdoors.

Diah said in general the weather in the next three days would be cloudy followed by light rain.

“Light rain is possible, especially in the west of Bengkulu province. Currently, visibility in Bengkulu city stands at 1,500 meters as the haze is being carried by wind from the east,” she added.

Diah said the haze had originated from South Sumatra because no hot spots had been found in Bengkulu.

“It’s normal for Bengkulu to receive haze from other areas,” she added. The haze in Bengkulu city is affecting visibility and respiration.

“I have sensed the presence of the haze for the past five days. I have given my children masks to wear when they go to school,” said Bengkulu city resident Usman.

Riau’s Forests Rife With Danger: Rangers
Eyewitness: The Jakarta Globe discovers plenty of evidence of arson and illegal logging in Riau province's Rimbang Baling Reserve
Basten Gokkon Jakarta Globe 17 Oct 14;

A helicopter drop water on burning peatland as firefighters from the Arara Abadi Sinarmas Forestry company extinguish the fire in Siak, Riau province on June 24, 2013. (EPA Photo/Reno Alam)

Pekanbaru. Sprawling over 136,000 hectares in Riau province, the Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve is home to some of the richest biodiversity in Indonesia, specifically endangered Sumatran tigers.

Rimbang Baling, which is a part of the Barisan mountain range — the mid-point of the tropical rainforest world heritage site of Sumatra, was set as a wildlife reserve by gubernatorial decree in June 1982.

The wildlife reserve’s tropical forest is estimated to be home to 170 species of birds and 50 mammals.

“For tigers, Rimbang Baling serves as a source site and critical linkage for tiger movement in the northern and southern Sumatra,” Sunarto, a species specialist at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia, said during a trek in the wildlife reserve with a number of journalists.

“Many rivers, which snake all the way to the residences, also come from there,” he added.

“If the source had to become extinct, not long before you realize it, [biodiversity in Sumatra] would be gone.”

There may be just 200 to 300 Sumatran tigers — one-third of which are estimated to be in Riau’s forests — on Sumatra island, according to WWF Indonesia estimates.

Tigers are among the animals at the top of the food chain. As a result, disruptions to these big cats poses a threat to the larger ecosystem, of which humans are a part.

Exponential threats

The ecosystem at Rimbang Baling is seeing exponentially increasing threats from forest encroachment and land conversion activities by companies whose operations drive wildlife from the reserve’s borders.

Rows of acacia trees — typically used in the process of making wood pulp for paper production — and palm trees now stand tall at the outskirts of the wildlife reserve. Some are even are illegally planted within the conservation area.

When the Jakarta Globe, accompanied by WWF Indonesia and Riau’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency [BKSDA] visited Rimbang Baling on Monday, this reporter witnessed palm tree planting activity going on just 20 minutes after the group passed the Rimbang Baling Reserve’s entrance.

“We have just started [planting the palm trees] today,” Sunaryo, one of the eight workers present at the site, said during an intense interrogation by Bintang Hutajulu, who heads the local BKSDA’s conservation division.

Sunaryo admitted that he was paid to do the planting by a man by the name of Aziz, a local businessman who lives near the wildlife reserve.

“The area was already cleared out since a week ago by different workers,” Sunaryo said, gesturing to the surrounding area that appeared to have been felled and cleared by heavy equipment.

Bintang said officers at Riau’s conservation agency — after securing evidence in the form of several small palm trees intended for planting — would investigate the case. He also admonished the workers to stop any further activity.

The BKSDA also took the investigating party to an area in the Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve that had been cleared by slash-and-burn activities.

Arson has been the main cause of smoke that has engulfed Riau and wafted over Singapore and Malaysia in recent months.

The profit-motivated fires not only threaten wildlife but also the health of people in Sumatra and neighboring nations.

The smoke engulfing the region prompted authorities to temporarily close the Sultan Syarif Kasim II International Airport at Pekanbaru, the provincial capital, on Sunday.

“The arrival schedules have been delayed as currently the visibility is only 500 meters,” Baiquni Sudrajat, a spokesman for the international airport, said on Sunday. He added that visibility should be at least 1,500 meters for safety reasons.

Lack of resources

Johnny Lagawurin, who heads Riau’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency, said that monitoring at Rimbang Baling had been “very weak,” since even the biggest wildlife reserve in Sumatra only has three rangers officially hired by the Forestry Ministry.

These rangers have the duty to protect the forest and wildlife from illegal encroachment and poachers.

“We’ve been asking help from the people who live around the area to give us information, should they come across illegal activities happening in the wildlife reserve,” he said.

Johnny said the agency’s budget — used to purchase equipment, build more posts at Rimbang Baling, hire more trained rangers and presumably pay informants — has been the main challenge in the local conservation agency’s enforcement mission for many years.

Johnny added that forest rangers also require proper training to improve the quality of monitoring and protection of the wildlife reserve.

“Optimum monitoring requires a lot of funding; it also takes a while to train the rangers in forest protection,” Johnny said.

Forest rangers are the frontline protection force for the country’s threatened nature and wildlife.

But rangers themselves need protection, since their lives are in danger when they venture deep in the forest to do monitoring activities, according to Johnny.

“Dangers come not only from the wild animals, but also from poachers,” he said.

Syamsu, who has been a forest ranger for the Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve since 2005, admitted that he had received threats from poachers during his tenure as a ranger.

“I was told by a friend of mine who lives nearby Rimbang Baling, that [the poachers] would kill me if they see me,” Syamsu said, adding that these threats once made him reluctant to visit the wildlife reserve for almost a year.

“But then I realized that every job has its own risks and [death threats] are a part of my job,” he says.

Hopes for the new government

Conservationists have called on the incoming government, businesses and local communities to work together in conserving the habitats of wildlife across the archipelago’s 17,000 islands.

“Within five years, the new government must be able to protect the existing habitat for the wildlife,” WWF-Indonesia forest program director Anwar Purwoto said on Tuesday.

Anwar added that the new government will need to allocate more funds to help regional conservation agencies provide more rangers and facilities to monitor and protect wildlife reserves.

He added that companies are brushing off concerns about the threat their operations in concession areas pose to the health of wildlife and the knock-on effects that this has on the health of ecosystems — not only in conservation areas, but in concessions as well.

Part of the solution, Anwar said, is to mandate that companies must increase security patrols.

“We believe involving key stakeholders, including local communities, local government and corporations is the way to boost the protection needed for the wildlife reserve,” Anwar said.

He also praised the outgoing administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for signing, after more than a decade of delay, a multilateral agreement on transboundary haze.

Last month, the House of Representatives ratified the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which acknowledges a role for Indonesia’s neighbors in taking active measures to tackle the problem.

Parties to the agreement, signed in 2002, are required to cooperate on measures to mitigate transboundary haze pollution, as well as to respond promptly to “a request for relevant information sought by a state or states that are or may be affected” by such pollution in order to minimize the impacts.

The second part in particular has been a sensitive issue for Indonesia, the last member state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to ratify the agreement, despite being the principal source of haze from forest fires in the region.

“With the new agreement, we can also expect it to eventually help protect the wildlife habitat,” Anwar said.