C. Kalimantan awaits rain to drive away haze

C. Kalimantan awaits rain to drive away haze

Musthofid and Dadan Wijaksana, The Jakarta Post, Palangka Raya,
C. Kalimantan

Seeing commuters travel through downtown Palangka Raya with masks
covering their face has been a common sight over the past three
months.

Vehicles crawl along the streets, some with their headlights
turned on to help the drivers see in front of them.

On each side of the streets, pedestrians, although they number
only a few, commute lethargically, struggling against the cloud
of smog either by using masks or simply covering the front of
their face with their hands occasionally.

Palangka Rayans have been forced to cope with the irritating
haze, which emits from the burned out or burning forests.

Between 400 and 500 hot spots or fires are reported to have
beleaguered the town's population of 165,000, according to 2001
data.

Each hot spot may contain several fires spaced close together.

As a result, the town is continuously clouded with huge smog,
which accounts for the drop in visibility and rising respiratory
problems.

"What a wonderful haze paradise!" Nicola Waldes from Britain
said jokingly of the adverse conditions.

The haze usually comes in the morning and disperses toward
evening when the wind helps blow it away. During the day,
visibility, although it ranges unpredictably from day to day,
drops to about 300 meters.

Visibility can improve when rain falls once in a while, or it
can worsen. Two weeks ago visibility was reduced to only between
fifteen and twenty meters, which almost brought all activities in
town to a halt.

"It's difficult to see where you are driving. Everyone prefers
to stay at home," Adi, a taxi driver, told The Jakarta Post.

Children are deterred from attending school with the local
administration announcing optional days off. Work hours at a
number of governmental and private offices have been cut.

Workers come to offices only to knock off earlier than normal.

The accumulation of haze has made the concentration of dust
particles in the air increase to a hazardous 1,000 particulate
micron (PM) over the past few weeks, which has exceeded the
tolerable level of 300PM.

Five people were reported to have died from respiratory
complications. Although the health office claims that the deaths
were not directly caused by the smog as they had contracted acute
respiratory illnesses prior to the situation, the haze had
aggravated their health conditions.

Thousands of people are also reported to be suffering from
breathing problems, which range from minor complaints to the
acute.

Except for last week's arrival of government officials to
Palangka Raya, the Tjilik Riwut Airport, which is seven
kilometers northeast of the city, has hardly been accessible.

A Fokker aircraft sat idle at the air base, whose runway is
2,100 meters long and 30 meters wide.

With visibility dropping significantly below the minimum
required range of 1,000 meters, flights have been canceled since
August. "It would be too risky to fly if visibility was around
200 or 300 meters," Yadie, an airport attendant, said.

The haze adversely affects the economy. The closure of the
airport has subsequently affected the hospitality industry. Many
hotels are complaining about a drop in the occupancy rate by
almost fifty percent.

"We used to be fully booked but now we generally have 20 of
the 30 rooms filled," Rusdi, who works at the Lampung Hotel's
reception counter, said.

The people of Palangka Raya and its vicinity feel resigned to
dealing with the haze, which comes every year. The haze has been
worse than usual once every five years, as it has been this year.

This season has witnessed a worse haze problem than in 1997.

On a much wider scale, haze from Kalimantan in general has
also spread to neighboring countries with Malaysia and Singapore
complaining about occasional disruption to air traffic.

As usual, the prolonged dry season, land clearing and illegal
logging have been blamed for the fires.

For travelers on buses going along the Trans-Kalimantan route,
which encompasses Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Palangka Raya,
Sampit and Pangkalan Bun, the westernmost part of the province,
their visibility is obscured as soon as they enter the Kuala
Kapuas district, about 100 kilometers south of the provincial
capital.

Smoke billows into the air from raging fires, which are
scattered across the vast landscape of bushes and plants. Some
hot spots are still smoldering, which causes more smoke.

Illegal logging has contributed to the fires. Uncontrolled
exploitation has left forests barren, and has subsequently made
the soil unable to retain water.

With little water on hand, the forest has become tinder dry
and is consequently more of a fire risk.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares are reported to be affected
by the fires. Conditions have worsened over the fact that the
area is mostly made up of peatland.

With the dry season exacerbating conditions, the peatland has
become more vulnerable to fire.

The Palangka Raya-based Center for International Cooperation
in the Management of Tropical Peatland (CIMTROP) cautioned that
the fires had endangered the biodiversity and ecosystem of the
peatland.

CIMTROP Director Suwido Limin estimated that almost half of
the peatland area in Central Kalimantan had been destroyed by
fires.

Despite the severity of the problem, little has been done to
tackle the haze problem.

The local administration has teamed up with the forestry
office and the military and police headquarters have made efforts
to contain the fires, but to no avail.

A lack of funding and unexperienced personnel are blamed for
the failed efforts, Harun Al-Rasyid, the spokesman of the local
authority, said recently.

"We have done our utmost best. But they (the fires) are too
widespread to overcome," he said.

Efforts to extinguish the fires have also been carried out by
CIMTROP. With its fire-fighting team, Tim Serbu Api (TSA), it
said that it had fought fires by using groundwater drawn from
around the hot spots.

Lamenting about the lack of support from the local
administration, Suwido said they could only save a small
percentage of the ravaged area.

Suwido, who said he had only 26 members on his TSA, also
blamed the authorities for their indifference and the absence of
prevention policies to deal with the problem.

"We wish they had acted earlier to prevent the fires from
spreading. They tend to sit back and watch things worsen," he
said, adding that they had turned to foreign assistance in their
battle against the blaze.

Legislators are also desperate about putting out the fires,
with Rinco Norkim of the National Mandate Party (PAN) saying: "I
see that the authorities have done their utmost best. It's
because the area is too extensive to cover that little has been
done to our expectations."

Realizing that a huge loss is inevitable, Suwido and Rinco
said they considered the haze problem a national disaster and
that it required the central government to act.

Fully aware that the haze has become an annual problem, Rinco
said that people felt resigned to facing more catastrophes in the
future.

"All we can do now is to pray for the rain to come soon," he
said two weeks ago.

Rain did fall last Sunday and the haze was reported to have
cleared somewhat. Although the haze problem may totally disappear
by the time the rainy season comes along, people will be bracing
themselves for another bout of fires -- and haze -- next year.