Govt Negligence in Forest Fire Prevention

The government\'s negligence in forest fire prevention efforts during the prolonged dry season this year has caused haze to spread to neighboring countries.

KOMPAS/EMANUEL EDI SAPUTRA

Thick haze from forest and peatland fires blankets Pontianak city, West Kalimantan, on Monday (16/9/2019). Thick haze has raised the Air Quality Index for the city to the highest level, Hazardous.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The haze produced by forest and peatland fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan continues to worsen and to threaten human health. Peatland fires are raging out of control due to minimal prevention efforts in anticipating the long dry season predicted this year.

Forest and peatland fires are occurring in the six provinces of Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s (BNPB) data shows that 328,724 hectares were affected by wildfires in January-August 2019 reaching. Meanwhile, the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has detected more than 25,000 hotspots across all regions of Indonesia in the last 10 days.

The fires have produced thick haze that ranges from "unhealthy" to "hazardous" on the Air Quality Index in Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, Bengkulu, West Sumatra, the Riau Islands, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. Meteorological monitoring shows that the haze has also crossed national borders and spread to Malaysia and Singapore.

The current condition calls to mind Indonesia’s worst haze, which occurred in 2015, with the forest and peatland fires unable to be extinguished completely over the next three years. This year\'s haze disaster is predicted to be even worse because the drought will continue until October.

KOMPAS/EMANUEL EDI SAPUTRA

Thick haze blankets Pontianak Supadio International Airport, West Kalimantan, on Monday (16/9/2019). Dozens of flights were cancelled because visibility was only 150 meters.

BNPB chairman Lt. Gen. Doni Monardo said on Monday (16/9/2019) that this year’s prolonged drought, triggered by the El Niño weather phenomenon, had caused peatlands to become drier than usual due to more than 60 rainless days. Ironically, fires were still being used for clearing peatlands to create new plantations.

More than 9,000 firefighting personnel and 44 helicopters had been deployed to tackle the fires, but had proven ineffective. Meanwhile, firefighting efforts through cloud seeding often failed due to saturation levels of less than 70 percent.

Lack of synergy

The lack of central-regional coordination in forest fire prevention has contributed to worsening forest and peatland fires this year. The central government’s efforts cannot succeed without the full support of local administrations.

In opening a limited meeting on Monday evening to discuss the forest and peatland fires in Pekanbaru, Riau, President Joko Widodo said that he had insisted since the beginning that preventing forest and peatland fires was an absolute necessity. Moreover, this year\'s dry season was relatively long compared to previous years, and decades of experience had shown that it was very difficult to put out forest and peatland fires.

KOMPAS/EMANUEL EDI SAPUTRA

Officers of the West Kalimantan Provincial Health Office distribute masks to motorists on Jl. 28 Oktober, Pontianak, on Monday (16/9/2019).

Despite having the necessary equipment from the center to the regions, the President observed that the physical infrastructure was not used optimally to prevent forest and peatland fires. Forest fire prevention and management efforts would only be effective if all government apparatuses worked together.

"The governors have subordinates down to the bottommost [levels], the local military commander also has subordinates, regional police chiefs also have subordinates down to the [village level]. This does not include the BNPB, or the fact that we also have forestry personnel. We have all of these subordinates, but they are not managed properly," he said.

President Jokowi also admitted that the government was negligent in preventing forest and peatland fires. "There is no need to have meetings like this every year. We must be ready automatically before the dry season. That is all, but we are negligent so the haze only grows," he said.

Furthermore, the President called on law enforcement officials to take firm action against anyone who was proven to have acted in such a way that had caused the fires. Companies that were proven guilty must be punished, and not just individuals.

AFP/ADEK BERRY

Indonesian firefighters work to extinguish a fire in Kampar, Riau province, on Monday (16/9/2019). The number of hotspots that cause the forest and peatland fires has increased substantially. Based on satellite data from Sept. 12, haze from Indonesia has spread to other Southeast Asian countries.

Disaster impact

The thick haze from forest and peatland fires has affected the health of hundreds of thousands of residents. Data from the Health Ministry’s Health Crisis Center shows that Riau treated 15,346 patients for acute respiratory infection (ARI) on 1-15 Sept. Jambi treated 15,047 ARI cases in July-August and Palembang treated 76,236 people for ARI. Meanwhile, Palangkaraya recorded 11,758 ARI patients in May-September, and 10,364 people were treated for ARI in Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan.

Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) professor Bambang Hero Saharjo estimated environmental losses of Rp 130 trillion from forest fires in January to mid-September. "This is [just] for environmental losses, and does not include other losses, or victims and people suffering respiratory illnesses," he said.

(ITA/ESA/RAM/IDO/DNE/TAN/HLN/ICH/JOL/NTA/KUM/WHY)

ANTARA FOTO/MUSHAFUL IMAM

Students travel by a motorboat amid thick haze due to forest and peatland fires on the Ogan River, Palembang, South Sumatra, on Monday (16/9/2019). The Palembang administration issued a circular containing a change in school hours for students to help prevent the haze from endangering their health.