Behind the fires

After weeks of conflicting statements from government officials on the cause of the forest fires currently raging in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo has come up with still a different view. He suspects foul play behind some of the fires.

Djamaludin says that some of the fires may have been started by politically motivated groups, while others resulted from conflicts of interests, for example between forestry concession holders and their workers, or with the local people.

"We have to watch out for those political movements that want to sabotage our economic development and government policies," he was reported to have said.

Since the minister declined to elaborate, his statement is not only far from satisfactory, it has raised a whole bunch of new questions. For example, who could be the "politically motivated" groups behind the arson, or, again, assuming that Djamaludin's assertion is correct, how could a labor dispute between forestry concession holders and their workers, or overlapping land claims involving the local people, lead to arson?

As far back as we can remember, forest fires in Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan have been a regular problem. Over the years the government has tended to play down their magnitude, always citing local slash-and-burn farming methods as the prime cause. Lately, coal and peat deposits, particularly in Kalimantan, also have been blamed as the eternal source of fires.

Hence, Djamaludin's allegation of the possibility of arson is somehow startling. For years forestry products have been one of the prima donnas of our export earning efforts and disputes over forest concessions have made regular headlines in the media. But to say that those conflicts may have led to arson seems the be the last thing one would think of.

Forest fires have created havoc for years. Not only have they destroyed vast tracts of forest and plantations, they have hampered air transportation and caused haze, prompting complaints from neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.

Since major fires have been occurring in almost every dry season in Java, Sumatra and Kalimantan, one might wonder why we seem to be so ignorant as to accept this as a natural phenomenon, and, therefore, remain disinclined to take adequate steps to deal with the problem.

Take for instance the 1983 forest fire in Kalimantan, reputedly the biggest blaze in the history of mankind. No less than 3,000,000 hectares of rain forest -- an area about the size of the Netherlands -- smoldered and flared for weeks before news reports reached Jakarta and started to create a fuss.

Or take a more recent example: the forest fire of 1991 when the resulting thick smoke and ashes also blanketed Singapore and parts of Malaysia, affecting shipping in the Strait of Malacca and causing Indonesia to call for international help.

And yet, every time one hears the same old story repeated over and over again -- of the shortages of funds, equipment and manpower to combat the fires, or of the lack of expertise to cope with such major catastrophes. The authorities sometimes even seem lethargic, failing to move fast enough to stop the fires.

If a lack of funds seems to be the problem, why doesn't the government make use of the billions of dollars of forestry funds accumulated for years by the Ministry of Forestry? Why doesn't the government set up a special agency on an inter-departmental basis and provide it with enough money and resources to deal with the perennial forest fires?

And now, this arson thing further muddies the water of speculation about causes. If one follows the usual government reasoning, then those who are behind the fires must be subversive elements, or anti-development and even anti-Pancasila groups, or misguided individuals, thus deserving to be severely punished. But the question is, how true is this allegation? And how big is the "share" of this arson element in the current forest fires?

Since this arson matter is still under investigation by the law enforcement authorities, we can do nothing but wait for the outcome. Meanwhile, we should not let ourselves be sidetracked by the issue and must, instead, concentrate on how to deal with the actual fires before the problem boomerangs on us and becomes a pressing international issue.