Indonesia: Govt mulls over harsher sanctions for perpetrators of forest fires

The Jakarta Post 25 Aug 15;

The Environment and Forestry Ministry is considering levying harsher administrative punishments to increase the deterrent effect on companies that cause forest fires.

“Administrative sanctions, such as revoking and freezing concession permits, are the possible alternatives that we are now considering. It is hard [to implement new policy because of legal and practical challenges], but we have to be able to stop [the forest fires from starting],” Minister Siti Nurbaya said Monday at the ministry’s office.

The ministry said there was no strong legal basis to revoke or freeze permits and the consequences of revoking a permit brought practical challenges so the policy should be made carefully.

“So for example, we revoke a permit of 10,000 hectares of land: Who’s going to watch it after that? The area will be open to access and be prone to illegal use by many parties. We have limited manpower to watch over the area,” the ministry’s spokesperson Eka W. Soegiri told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The ministry’s director general for law enforcement, Rasio Ridho Sani, said it is hoped that the administrative sanctions would deter those who make fires in the forests, alongside the legal sanctions that had been applied so far.

Recently, the Rokan Hilir District Court in Riau sentenced the assistant of a plantation head with PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa (JJP), Kosman Vitoni Imanuel Siboro, to two years in prison, as well as a fine of Rp 1 billion (US$71,942) or three more months internment, for burning 120 hectares of land to open a palm oil plantation in June 2013.

Siboro was convicted of violating Article 98 and 116 of Law No. 32/2009 on environment protection and management. Article 98 stipulates the punishment for individuals who intentionally damage the environment, while Article 116 stipulates that in the case of any crimes done for, by or in the name of a corporation, the plaintiff can sue the corporation and/or its leaders.

The ministry has also filed criminal lawsuit against PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa over the same case with the Rokan Hilir Court.

Separately, a civil lawsuit has also been filed with the North Jakarta District Court against the company, demanding Rp 119.88 billion in fines for damaging the environment and Rp 371.12 billion for the recovery of the area. Both trials are now in process.

In a bigger case, it filed civil lawsuits with the Palembang Court District in South Sumatra against PT Bumi Mekar Hijau for allegedly causing fires in 20,000 hectares of land in Ogan Komering Ilir, South Sumatra.

It demanded fines of Rp 2.6 trillion for damaging the environment and Rp 5.2 trillion for its recovery.

“This case gets most of our attention. If we win this, we can save the state Rp 7 trillion,” Rasio said.

PT Bumi Mekar Hijau is a subsidiary of Asia Pulp and Paper. It has concessions of 250,370 hectares of land in Ogan Komering Ilir. Based on data from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), most of the hot spots in the province are on the company’s concessions.

Besides bringing cases to court, the current Environment and Forestry Ministry has also made a breakthrough in law enforcement.

“After cases of land and forest fires, we set an investigation line [similar to police line, but issued from the ministry] on the land so nobody could use the land before the case closed. Before, the government did not do this so the land could still be used although the case was not settled yet,” Rasio told the Post.

The ministry has been actively suing plantation companies for forest fires since 2013. The cheapness of the practice of slashing and burning to open forest areas has made it difficult for the companies to stop the practice.

Haze continues to emerge from the regions even now. (rbk)

Read more!

Indonesia: Haze worsens in Riau and Jambi, schools shut down

Rizal Harahap and Jon Afrizal, The Jakarta Post 26 Aug 15;

Haze has worsened in the neighboring provinces of Riau and Jambi on Sumatra Island during the last few days, forcing local authorities to send students home.

In Riau, visibility continued to decrease.

Based on observations conducted by the Pekanbaru office of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), visibility in the provincial capital on Tuesday morning was only 500 meters.

In Rengat and Dumai, visibility was 2 and 3 kilometers respectively.

“The haze has also negatively impacted the air quality in various regions in Riau. It is currently at moderate to unhealthy levels, or between 100 and 199 PSI,” head of the office’s data and analysis section, Slamet Riyadi, said on Tuesday.

He said the haze that is presently covering various regions in Riau came from provinces in southern Sumatra due to the wind that blew from the southeast to the west and the north throughout Riau.

Among the provinces blamed for having sent the haze to Riau were Jambi and South Sumatra, where 33 and 38 hot spots respectively were detected on Tuesday morning.

Slamet said that the Terra and Aqua satellites on Tuesday morning also detected six hot spots in Aceh, two in Lampung and one in Bengkulu.

“In total there were 85 hot spots detected across southern Sumatra,” he said, adding that the same satellites detected only four hot spots in Riau on Tuesday morning, one each in Indragiri Hulu, Indragiri Hilir, Kampar and Pekanbaru.

Thick haze forced two flights to hold for a while before landing at Pekanbaru Sultan Syarif Kasim II International airport. The airplanes were forced to wait in order for visibility to improve.

“Both the planes could finally land safely as the visibility increased to 1,000 meters,” the airport’s officer in charge Hasnan Siregar said, adding that the haze so far had not disturbed departure schedules.

Meanwhile in Jambi, haze forced the authorities in East and West Tanjungjabung regencies to send students home from Monday for an indeterminable time.

“The haze endangers the students’ health, and that is why we sent them home,” West Tanjungjabung Regent Usman Ermulan said on Tuesday, adding that the policy applied only up to junior high school students.

He said his administration also distributed free masks to people to help lessen the negative health effects of the haze.

“We will also ask the health agency a check on the haze content in the air to make sure of its security level,” he said.

Haze due to land fires also still covered the Mendahara Ulu district and East Tanjungjabung regency. Firefighters were still trying to extinguish the fire as of today.

“We decided to temporarily send students in the region home because we consider the haze dangerous,” head of East Tanjungjabung Education Agency’s elementary education division, P. Sidabutar, said.

He said the policy, which was applied only to pre-schools pupils and first and second graders, was made in anticipation of new problems that might emerge because of the thickening haze in Mendahara Ulu.

He said he could not yet determine when learning activities would return to normal.

He even said that if the haze worsened, there was a possibility that all the schools in the region would be temporarily shut down.

Thick haze engulfs Palangkaraya
thejakartapost.com 25 Aug 15;

A thick haze filled the air of the Central Kalimantan provincial capital of Palangkaraya on Tuesday as brush and forest fires spread to wider areas, potentially causing health problems.

Residents have expressed a hope that the government would distribute free masks for them. “As the smokes become thicker, the government needs to distribute free masks,” said Wardi, a motorcycle rider in Palangkaraya, as quoted by tribunnews.com on Tuesday.

He said thick smoke had caused pain in his eyes while riding.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has predicted the haze will worsen in Palangkaraya, where motorists are already turning on their headlights to help improve the visibility.(++++)

Read more!

Indonesia: Fires on Mount Lawu spread threatening historic temple

Ganug Nugroho Adi, The Jakarta Post 25 Aug 15;

The forest fire on Mount Lawu, which is located in the border area of Central and East Java provinces, has further expanded, nearing the Candi Cetho temple and forcing the authorities to close the mountain to hiking activities.

The blaze, which broke out on Sunday in Magetan and Ngawi regencies in East Java, spread on Tuesday to areas near the temple located on the slopes of the mountain, in Karanganyar regency, Central Java.

According to the administrator of state-run forestry firm Perhutani’s Forest Functionary Office (BKPH) in Surakarta, Central Java, Bob Priambodo, the fire has razed forest areas in North Lawu, in Karanganyar regency.

“We have deployed personnel from Perhutani and forest community groups assisted by the Indonesian Military [TNI] and police officers to fight the fire,” said Bob.

The Magetan Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) in East Java has also deployed 30 personnel to help extinguish the fires on the slopes of Mt. Lawu, including Perhutani territory.

“The BPBD personnel will help Perhutani firefighters who have arrived at the location to prevent the fire from spreading further,” Ma-getan BPBD head Agung Lewis told the media in Magetan on Tuesday.

According to him, the personnel will later be posted around a kilometer from the fire location to create a firebreak and get rid of combustible undergrowth.

“The firebreak is designed to prevent the fire from spreading to other forested areas and in the hope of localizing and dousing the fire” Agung said.

Separately, Perhutani’s South Lawu BKPH administrator Marwoto said at the fire location that the fire had expanded to forested areas around Candi Cetho, a Hindu temple complex built during the Majapahit Kingdom in 15th century, as well as the Mt. Lawu National Park.

Rough terrain and strong winds have hampered firefighting efforts.

“The fire broke out on Sunday afternoon. Personnel from Perhutani, the TNI and police had carried out anticipatory measures around Candi Cetho, but the fire flared up due to strong winds,” said Marwoto.

He added that to expedite firefighting efforts, and for safety reasons the Mt. Lawu hiking path from Candi Cetho to Magetan had been closed temporarily.

He was unable to fully determine the extent of damage.

Separately, Surakarta Perhutani spokesman Suko Haryono said the slopes of Mt. Lawu slope were prone to fires during the dry season.

“The forests around Mt. Lawu catch fire almost every year, especially during the dry season like now,” he said.

He added that based on data from the Mt. Lawu Perhutani office, massive fires earlier razed forested areas around Mt. Lawu in 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2012.

The fire in 2002 was the worst having razed 6,284 hectares of forest.

So far, the fire has razed between 50 and 75 hectares in a protected forest managed by Lawu Perhutani.

Last week, all hiking trails to the peak of Mount Merbabu in Central Java were also closed because of fires in 25 hectares of savanna areas around the mountain.

Read more!

NASA: Rising Sea Levels More Dangerous Than Thought

Tia Ghose LiveScience.com Yahoo News 27 Aug 15;

Scientists are concerned about sea level rise from ice melt in southern Greenland (shown here) and the Antarctic.

The consequences of global sea level rise could be even scarier than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models, which don't fully account for the fast breakup of ice sheets and glaciers, NASA scientists said today (Aug. 26) at a press briefing.

What's more, sea level rise is already occurring. The open question, NASA scientists say, is just how quickly the seas will rise in the future.

Rising seas

The current warming of the seas and the associated expansion of their waters account for about one-third of sea level rise around the world.

"When heat goes under the ocean, it expands just like mercury in a thermometer," Steve Nerem, lead scientist for NASA's Sea Level Change Team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in the press briefing.

The remaining two-thirds of sea level rise is occurring as a result of melting from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and mountain glaciers, Nerem said.

Data collected by a cadre of NASA satellites — which change position in relation to one other as water and ice on the planet realign and affect gravity's tug — reveal that the ocean's mass is increasing. This increase translates to a global sea level rise of about 1.9 millimeters (0.07 inches) per year, Nerem said.

Unpredictable pace

But the speed of sea level rise is an open question.

"Ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise sooner, and more than anticipated," said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

That's because people have never seen the collapse of a huge ice sheet and therefore don't have good models of the effects, Rignot said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international organization created by the United Nations that produces climate change models, has predicted that sea levels could rise as much as 21 feet (6.4 meters) in the next century if global warming continues unabated.

But even that worst-case scenario may not capture the risk, Rignot said. That's because the IPCC models only take into account temperature changes at the surface of glaciers, but not the rapid melting that occurs when glaciers calve and break up into the ocean, Rignot said.

In addition, much of glaciers' melting occurs at deep, undersea ice canyons. Warmer water is salter and therefore heavier. That means it sinks into the deeper layers of the ocean, and the contrast between this warm water and the undersea ice canyons contributes an unknown but substantial amount of sea level rise, said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at JPL in Pasadena, California.

When the massive Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland calved earlier this summer, it moved 4.6 square miles (12 square kilometers) of ice in one day, Rignot said.

If the Jakobshavn glacier had melted completely, "it contains enough ice to raise global sea level by half a meter — just this one glacier in Greenland," Rignot said. If all the land ice on the planet were to melt, it would raise sea levels about 197 feet (60 m), he added.

Some of the melting that has already occurred is likely irreversible, and could take hundreds of years to reverse, Rignot said.

American impact

While global sea levels have risen about 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) over the past 22 years, the west coast of the United States has not seen much of a rise in ocean levels. That's largely because of a long-time-scale weather pattern called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is masking the global effect. That, however, could reverse in the coming years, Willis said.

"In the long run, we expect the sea levels on the west coast to catch up to global mean and even exceed the global mean," Willis said.

Florida is also particularly vulnerable to sea level rise because its porous soil allows more seawater intrusion than does the soil in other coastal areas, Willis said.

Global sea levels climbed 3 inches since 1992, NASA research shows
Irene Klotz PlanetArk 27 Aug 15;

Sea levels worldwide rose an average of nearly 3 inches (8 cm) since 1992, the result of warming waters and melting ice, a panel of NASA scientists said on Wednesday.

In 2013, a United Nations panel predicted sea levels would rise from 1 to 3 feet (0.3 to 0.9 meters) by the end of the century. The new research shows that sea level rise most likely will be at the high end of that range, said University of Colorado geophysicist Steve Nerem.

Sea levels are rising faster than they did 50 years ago and "it's very likely to get worse in the future," Nerem said.

The changes are not uniform. Some areas showed sea levels rising more than 9 inches (25 cm) and other regions, such as along the U.S. West Coast, actually falling, according to an analysis of 23 years of satellite data.

Scientists believe ocean currents and natural cycles are temporarily offsetting a sea level rise in the Pacific and the U.S. West Coast could see a significant hike in sea levels in the next 20 years.

"People need to understand that the planet is not only changing, it's changed," NASA scientist Tom Wagner told reporters on a conference call.

"If you're going to put in major infrastructure like a water treatment plant or a power plant in a coastal zone ... we have data you can now use to estimate what the impacts are going to be in the next 100 years," Wagner said.

Low-lying regions, such as Florida, are especially vulnerable, added Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division.

"Even today, normal spring high tides cause street flooding in sections of Miami, something that didn't happen regularly just a few decades ago," Feilich said.

More than 150 million people, mostly in Asia, live within 3 feet (1 meter) of the sea, he added.

The biggest uncertainty in forecasting sea level rise is determining how quickly the polar ice sheets will melt in response to warming temperatures.

"Significant changes are taking place today on ice sheets," said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California in Irvine. "It would take centuries to reverse the trend of ice retreat."

Scientists said about one-third of the rise in sea levels is due to the expansion of warmer ocean water, one-third to ice loss from the polar ice sheets and the remaining third to melting mountain glaciers.

(Editing by David Adams and Cynthia Osterman)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 26 Aug 15

Help stop mass balloon event by Touch Community Service at Sentosa
wild shores of singapore

Grey-rumped Treeswift feeding chick just before fledging
Bird Ecology Study Group

Scarlet Skimmer mating and ovipositing
Bird Ecology Study Group

Read more!

'Occasional hazy conditions' expected at least till Wednesday

Occasional hazy conditions are expected for the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday, said NEA, adding that the 24-hour PSI may enter the low-end of the Unhealthy range.
Channel NewsAsia 25 Aug 15;

SINGAPORE: Hazy conditions are expected on Tuesday (Aug 25) and Wednesday, with prevailing winds forecasted to blow from the south or southeast, said the National Environment Agency (NEA) Tuesday evening.

"For the rest of today and tomorrow, occasional hazy conditions can be expected," said NEA, adding that thundery showers are forecast in the late morning and early afternoon on Wednesday.

"The 24-hr PSI is expected to be in the high-end of the Moderate range, but may enter the low-end of the Unhealthy range if the prevailing winds blow from the south or southwest," NEA added. The agency also said that the slightly hazy conditions in the afternoon was "blown in from Sumatra by the prevailing winds".

NEA said 152 hotspots were detected in Sumatra on Tuesday, down from 192 found on Monday.

The three-hour PSI at 7pm was 99, while the 24-hour PSI at 7pm was 80-89, which is in the Moderate range.

"Given the air quality forecast for the next 24 hours, healthy persons should reduce prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion," said NEA. "The elderly, pregnant women and children should minimise prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion, while those with chronic lung or heart disease should avoid prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion."

On Monday the three-hour PSI peaked at 91 in the afternoon, before falling to 82 at 7pm. The 24-hour PSI at 7pm on Monday was 70-76, due to prevailing winds blowing in haze from Sumatra, said NEA.

- CNA/ek

Read more!

Malaysia: National biodiversity policy being reviewed to include challenges to eco-tourism

New Straits Times 26 Aug 15;

PUTRAJAYA: The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry is currently reviewing the National Biodiversity Policy to include the importance of and challenges to the growing eco-tourism industry.

Its deputy minister Datuk Hamim Samuri said the policy balanced the need for conservation and introduced several targets for sustainable tourism.

He said in order to improve the value of eco-tourism sites and conservation efforts, the policy also indicated the need for sites to be internationally recognised, under UNESCO World Heritage, Ramsar (wetlands of international importance), Man and Biosphere (MAB) or East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership.

“For parks or eco-tourism sites to be self-sustaining, it must be able to generate income through various sources such as entrance or conservation fees and activity fees.

“One way to achieve this is to increase the yield from the existing foreign visitors, many of whom have expressed willingness for higher park entrance fees if the offerings of eco-tourism sites are enriched with a unique experience.”

Hamim said this at the Roundtable Dialogue on Sustainable Practices in Eco-Tourism, here, today.

He said that six recognised eco-tourism sites had attracted over one million foreign tourists each year.

The sites are Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre, the National Park in Pahang, Tioman Island, Royal Belum State Park, Kinabalu Park and Gunung Mulu National Park. --Bernama

Read more!

Malaysia: KL to discuss haze with Jakarta

The Star 26 Aug 15;

PETALING JAYA: Na­­tural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar will be meeting his Indonesian counterpart to tackle the issue of transboundary haze.

Parts of Malaysia, especially in Sarawak, have been affected by pollution from open burning in Indonesia.

He said there had been an increasing number of hotspots in Sumatra and Kalimantan, which led to recurring haze in Sarawak.

In a statement, Dr Wan Junaidi said the meeting would include negotiations to accelerate a memorandum of understanding on a bilateral prevention programme on transboundary haze pollution.

The Department of Environment’s (DOE) director-general on Monday had also written to his counterpart in the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry to express Malaysia’s concerns.

Malaysia has urged Indonesia to do more to tackle these fires.

Air quality in Malaysia improved yesterday. The Air Pollutant Index (API), as of noon, recorded good and moderate air quality in all areas, including three divisions in Sarawak, which recorded unhealthy readings the previous day.

However, Dr Wan Junaidi said there was still transboundary haze from West Kalimantan.

Satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini­stration detected 192 hotspots in Indonesia, including 22 in Kalimantan.

A single hotspot was detected in Johor and the DOE is investigating the cause.

Dr Wan Junaidi urged the public to cooperate with the authorities and to report incidences of open burning to the Fire and Rescue Department by calling 999 and the DOE at 1-800-88-2727 (toll free).

Meanwhile, the air quality has improved in Sarawak following two afternoons of downpour.

However, satellite imagery at 10am yesterday showed the large number of hotspots were in West, Central and East Kalimantan provinces. Data from the Asean Specialist Meteorological Centre showed visible smoke plumes emanating from the hotspots.

The API fell from unhealthy to moderate levels between Monday and Tuesday in the northern area. As at 3pm yesterday, the API in Kuching was 89, with visibility hovering around 2km.

API readings of between 0 and 50 indicate good air quality; 51 and 100 (moderate), 101 and 200 (unhealthy), 201 and 300 (very unhealthy) and over 301 (hazardous).

The state Natural Resources and Environment Board has banned all open burning activities until a re-evaluation is carried out pending applications for open burning.

Board controller Peter Sawal said there had been “an alarmingly large number of hotspots detected” across the border over the past few days, which caused haze to border towns like Sri Aman, Serian, Bau, as well as Kuching and Samarahan.

The Malaysian Meteorological Department is forecasting dry mornings and nights with isolated thunderstorms in the afternoons for the next week in Sarawak.

In George Town, the haze has returned, with the department’s monitoring station in Bayan Lepas showing a drop in visibility levels from 7km at 8am to 4km at 11am.

The monitoring station in Butterworth also showed a decline in horizontal visibility, from 6km (8am) to 5km (11am).

A check yesterday found that Komtar and the Raja Tun Uda Ferry Terminal in George Town could not be seen from the Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry Terminal in Butter­worth while the view of the Penang Bridge and the Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah Bridge was also poor.

Read more!

Malaysia: Unhealthy air in several west coast areas

PATRICK LEE The Star 26 Aug 15;

PETALING JAYA: Residents of Port Klang woke up Wednesday morning breathing dirtier air than usual after the Air Pollutant Index touched 101 at 6am. The air started deteriotating since 3am with a reading of 102. By 7am, the API reading was 100.

API reading of 51-100 is considered moderate while 100 to 200 unhealthy.

The readings at Seri Manjung in Perak was 98 on Wednesday morning while most parts of Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya saw API readings hovering between 90 to 97.

Other parts of the country saw "Moderate" API levels, with only a few (in Kelantan, Perlis and Sarawak) having "Good" levels.

The ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre website this morning showed dozens of fire hotspots in Indonesia's Sumatra and Kalimantan, with wind currents leading from there towards Malaysia.

Penang hit by haze
CHRISTOPHER TAN AND LO TERN CHERN The Star 25 Aug 15;

GEORGE TOWN: Penangites woke up to a hazy morning with the horizontal visibility level decreased sharply in Bayan Lepas, Penang.

The Malaysian Meteorological Department monitoring station in Bayan Lepas showed the visibility level decreasing from 7km at 8am to 4km at 11am.

The monitoring station in Butterworth also showed a decrease in horizontal visibility level from 6km (8am) to 5km (11am).

The Department of Environment online portal showed that the Air Pollutant Index (API) readings at its monitoring station in Seberang Jaya 2 recorded a constant increase from 49 (6am) to 50 (7am) followed by 51 (8am) and 53 at 11am.

The monitoring stations in Universiti Sains Malaysia recorded an API of 47 at 11am, while in the reading was Perai 35 (11am).

Read more!

Indonesia: Haze worsens in Riau and Jambi, schools shut down

Rizal Harahap and Jon Afrizal, The Jakarta Post 26 Aug 15;

Haze has worsened in the neighboring provinces of Riau and Jambi on Sumatra Island during the last few days, forcing local authorities to send students home.

In Riau, visibility continued to decrease.

Based on observations conducted by the Pekanbaru office of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), visibility in the provincial capital on Tuesday morning was only 500 meters.

In Rengat and Dumai, visibility was 2 and 3 kilometers respectively.

“The haze has also negatively impacted the air quality in various regions in Riau. It is currently at moderate to unhealthy levels, or between 100 and 199 PSI,” head of the office’s data and analysis section, Slamet Riyadi, said on Tuesday.

He said the haze that is presently covering various regions in Riau came from provinces in southern Sumatra due to the wind that blew from the southeast to the west and the north throughout Riau.

Among the provinces blamed for having sent the haze to Riau were Jambi and South Sumatra, where 33 and 38 hot spots respectively were detected on Tuesday morning.

Slamet said that the Terra and Aqua satellites on Tuesday morning also detected six hot spots in Aceh, two in Lampung and one in Bengkulu.

“In total there were 85 hot spots detected across southern Sumatra,” he said, adding that the same satellites detected only four hot spots in Riau on Tuesday morning, one each in Indragiri Hulu, Indragiri Hilir, Kampar and Pekanbaru.

Thick haze forced two flights to hold for a while before landing at Pekanbaru Sultan Syarif Kasim II International airport. The airplanes were forced to wait in order for visibility to improve.

“Both the planes could finally land safely as the visibility increased to 1,000 meters,” the airport’s officer in charge Hasnan Siregar said, adding that the haze so far had not disturbed departure schedules.

Meanwhile in Jambi, haze forced the authorities in East and West Tanjungjabung regencies to send students home from Monday for an indeterminable time.

“The haze endangers the students’ health, and that is why we sent them home,” West Tanjungjabung Regent Usman Ermulan said on Tuesday, adding that the policy applied only up to junior high school students.

He said his administration also distributed free masks to people to help lessen the negative health effects of the haze.

“We will also ask the health agency a check on the haze content in the air to make sure of its security level,” he said.

Haze due to land fires also still covered the Mendahara Ulu district and East Tanjungjabung regency. Firefighters were still trying to extinguish the fire as of today.

“We decided to temporarily send students in the region home because we consider the haze dangerous,” head of East Tanjungjabung Education Agency’s elementary education division, P. Sidabutar, said.

He said the policy, which was applied only to pre-schools pupils and first and second graders, was made in anticipation of new problems that might emerge because of the thickening haze in Mendahara Ulu.

He said he could not yet determine when learning activities would return to normal.

He even said that if the haze worsened, there was a possibility that all the schools in the region would be temporarily shut down.

Haze disrupts flights to Pekanbaru
thejakartapost.com 25 Aug 15;

Several flights had to circle around the Sultan Syarif Kasim Airport in Pekanbaru for 25 to 30 minutes on Tuesday morning due to thick haze caused by forest and brush fires.

“The flights were disrupted due to low visibility of 400 to 500 meters this morning,” said Hasturman, the head of operations for the airport’s operator Angkasa Pura II as quoted by Antara news agency.

Flights from Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air and Citilink are among those being disrupted by the haze. None have been diverted yet.

"Safety is our priority. If the visibility is below 1,000 meters and pilots cannot see the runway, then they are not permitted to land," said Hasturman.

According to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in Pekanbaru, several regions were blanketed with a thick haze on Tuesday at 7 a.m. due to polluted air mixed with dew.

Besides Pekanbaru, Pelalawan is also experiencing thick haze with visibility of only 500 meters. Other cities such as Dumai and Rengat (Indragiri Hulu) are blanketed to a lesser extent, with visibility of two to three kilometers.

According to a spokesman for Riau's Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD), Edward Sanger, the thick haze seen in Pekanbaru and other regions is most likely due to fires in Jambi and South Sumatra.

He added there are currently 33 and 36 hot spots detected in Jambi and South Sumatra respectively.

According to the BMKG, Riau itself is currently home to two hot spots, in Kampar and Pekanbaru; a decrease from Monday when it had up to 15. (edn/kes)(++++)

Read more!

Researchers sample enormous oceanic trash vortex ahead of clean-up proposal

Emmett Berg Reuters Yahoo News 24 Aug 15;

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Researchers returned on Sunday from mapping and sampling a massive swirling cluster of trash floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, as the Dutch-borne crew works to refine a clean-up strategy it will roll out globally.

The crew of the Ocean Cleanup, backed by volunteers in sailboats, ventured to areas of the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", a swirling mass of human-linked debris spanning hundreds of miles of open sea where plastic outnumbers organisms by factors in the hundreds.

The debris, concentrated by circular, clockwise ocean currents within an oblong-shaped "convergence zone", lies near the Hawaiian Islands, about midway between Japan and the U.S. West Coast. The trash ranges from microscopic pieces of plastic to large chunks.

Working for about a month, the group collected samples as small as a grain of sand and as large as discarded fishing nets weighing more than 2,000 pounds. They mapped the area, using aerial balloons and trawling equipment to locate samples, said oceanographer Julia Reisser.

"We did three types of surveys in 80 locations, and now we are working on completing an up-to-date estimate of the size of the patch, making a chart of hot spots and publishing our findings by mid-2016," Reisser said.

View galleryA storage locker containing plastic garbage collected …
A storage locker containing plastic garbage collected during The Ocean Cleanup project is opened dur …
"There were hundreds of times more plastics in these areas than there were organisms," she added.

The reconnaissance trip is the brainchild of Ocean Cleanup's 21-year-old founder, Boyan Slat, and backed financially by Salesforce.com's chief executive Marc Benioff, among other philanthropic and crowdsourcing initiatives which brought in some $2.2 million, according to Ocean Cleanup.

The next phase, planned for 2016, is the deployment in Japanese coastal waters of a 2,000-meter scale model of the group's proposed debris collection system, which researchers believe could extend for 60 miles (96 km).

That system will contain floating stationary booms tethered to the ocean floor and linked in a V shape intended to skim and concentrate surface plastics floating on top of ocean currents.

Slat, a Dutch inventor who gained attention as a teenager when he developed the floating boom system which uses technology used for anchoring deep sea oil rigs, said the project would be situated in international waters, away from shipping lanes.

The cost of the reconnaissance expedition and the debris collection system was not disclosed. Critics say the system is too costly or unlikely to function as designed.

(Reporting by Emmett Berg in San Francisco; Editing by Eric M. Johnson and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Read more!

Last Sumatran rhino in the US to be sent to Indonesia to mate

Associated Press in Cincinnati The Guardian 25 Aug 15;

An Ohio zoo that has the last Sumatran rhino in the US on Tuesday announced plans to send the endangered species to south-east Asia on a mission to mate.

Conservation experts at the Cincinnati Zoo say eight-year-old Harapan will soon be on his way to Indonesia, where nearly all of the estimated 100 remaining Sumatran rhinos live. Numbers of the two-horned descendants of Ice Age wooly rhinos have fallen by some 90% since the mid-1980s as development of their south-east Asia forest habitat and poachers seeking their prized horns took their toll.

Cincinnati’s zoo has been a pioneer in breeding the species, producing the first three born in captivity in modern times. Harapan will join the eldest, Andalas, who has been in Indonesia since 2007 and has produced one male offspring. Andalas will turn 14 next month.

“We are very sad about the [Sumatran rhino] program coming to an end here in Cincinnati,” Terri Roth, the longtime head of the zoo’s Center for Research of Endangered Wildlife, told the Associated Press. “It’s a huge loss for us. But it’s the right thing, to at least have Harapan able to contribute to survival of the species.”

She said final details and permits are still being worked out, but it’s expected Harapan will be flown to Jakarta, then taken by ferry to his ancestral island home of Sumatra.

Harapan and Andalas’s sister, Suci, died from illness last year at the zoo, after the conservationists had earlier discussed trying to mate the siblings in a desperate move. Harapan was brought back to Cincinnati two years ago after being on loan to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Andalas lives at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary with three females and his one male offspring, born in 2012, on the Indonesia island. With three Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia and Harapan, there are only nine in captivity globally.

Conservationists and government officials gathered in Singapore in 2013 for a Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit to discuss increasing action to protect the species.

Environment ministry officials in South Africa, home to most of the world’s remaining rhinos overall, reported a total of 393 rhino poachings through April, an increase of more than 20% over the same period in 2014. Rhino advocates said recently they believe the losses are even higher.

South Africa has struggled to counter poaching syndicates cashing in on rising demand for rhino horns in parts of Asia where some people believe they have medicinal properties for treating everything from hangovers to cancer.

Read more!