14 firms suspected violating govt ban on land clearing

JAKARTA (JP): The government accused yesterday 14 plantation companies of violating a recent ban and continuing with land clearing activities that have caused forest fires.

A report from the Directorate General of Plantations at the Ministry of Agriculture said the 14 were among 76 companies that had complied with the government's order to file an account of their land clearing activities.

Dated Sept. 25, the ministry's report, however, did not give the names of the erring companies.

The government had earlier named 173 companies, mostly plantation and some timber estates, suspected of burning forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan for opening up land. Satellite imaging of the companies' concession areas showed raging fires.

The government had given the companies until Oct. 1 to defend themselves by filing reports on their activities. The government had promised it would first conduct checks in the field before taking punitive actions against erring companies.

Separately, Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah said yesterday the punitive measures would be "proportional".

"If they burned (the forests) and admitted it, and if that (activity) took place before the current problem (of widespread haze), it would not be a problem," he said after meeting with President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace.

"But this happened after the government banned the burning, they are still doing it, so we must take action," he said, without elaborating.

The ministry data shows that along with the 14 companies accused of deliberately burning forests, the government had found fires "with no clear causes" at the concession areas of 28 companies. There had also been fires at the concession areas of 23 other companies.

Sjarifudin said fire had engulfed 79,169 hectares of land in areas operated by the 173 concessionaires. He said most of the charred forests belonged to rubber and oil palm plantations.

The owners of the 173 companies have been asked to help extinguish fires in their respective areas, he added.

The brush and forest fires that have ravaged 300,000 hectares of land and forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan over the last three months have caused havoc in several towns on the islands and neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and parts of Thailand.

Other sources have reported that the fires have blackened up to 800,000 hectares of land.

Millions of people are currently under a health threat because of the smoke and haze. More than 30,000 people in Sumatra and Kalimantan and tens of thousands of others in Malaysia and Singapore have been afflicted with severe respiratory problems.

The prolonged dry season caused by a global climate phenomena known as El Nio has also been partly blamed for the widespread forest fires.

International offers of assistance have been much reported by the press recently, and help has been offered by the Malaysian government, which has deployed more than 1,000 firefighters to Sumatra and Kalimantan, to help their Indonesian counterparts cope with the fires.

Separately, the Indonesia Forum for Environment (Walhi) warned yesterday of the imminent danger of a food shortage facing some 20 million people in Sumatra and Kalimantan in the aftermath of the fires.

The non-governmental organization's executive director, Emmy Hafild, said that the government must be aware of this "very likely dire situation" and anticipate it well.

"The priority now of course is to put the forest fires out, but people's destroyed food resources, the outbreak of pests and all things that follow should be taken into account afterward," she said.

To support the concerted efforts to put out the fires, as President Soeharto had called for on Thursday, Emmy said the government must put forward "any necessary means" to equip community members and related authorities for the purpose.

"Ask for help either from Southern California or Australia, which have had lots of experiences fighting forest fires with their water-bomber aircraft."

"For the sake of millions of people now being choked by the haze, we have to do that (ask for help). We are not in any position at all to turn down any offer of assistance," Emmy said.

Emmy said her organization had opened a special bank account through which donors could channel their help for those in plight. The account number is 391-0570-6, the Jakarta Design Center Slipi chapter of Bank Niaga under the name of Walhi.

Emmy said her organization had sent 40,000 respiratory and surgical masks to West Kalimantan and 10,000 more to Jambi on Thursday.

"In Jakarta, we still have another eight tons of masks (containing about one million masks) donated by Malaysia, that have yet to be sent due to the absence of ships to Kalimantan," she said. "Therefore I call on our Navy to provide a ship to help carry the cargo." (prb/aan)

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