Forest fires cause $900m losses
By Hotib
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian forests are vulnerable to fires which inflict losses, both economically and environmentally.
From July to September last year, enormous forest fires occurred in Sumatra and Kalimantan, causing direct economic losses of billions of dollars, inflicting health problems nationally and internationally and jeopardizing transportation.
The catastrophe also resulted in losses of habitat, biodiversity, flora and fauna, including Sumatran tigers, Malayan sunbears, proboscis monkeys, orangutans, Storm's stork, the false gavial and other species of animals as yet unidentified.
The long-term impacts naturally still remain, disturbing local people and adjacent areas. They include the loss of hydrological functions (which will result in increased floods and drought), increased water pollution, loss of sustainable forestry products and the extinction of species. To a larger extent, the fire can result in global warming.
Indonesia and the international community inevitably hoped not to confront such a disaster again in the future. What Indonesia is facing in 1998 is different -- forest fires are happening again repeatedly in East Kalimantan. Even though the extent of the current forest fires in East Kalimantan is less than in 1997, it will cause direct and indirect impacts both on people and the environment.
A report said the fires had already affected more than 395,000 hectares of forests in East Kalimantan, causing about Rp 9 trillion (US$900 million) in direct and uncountable natural biodiversity losses. The fire could not yet be extinguished due to the condition of the fire locations and the prolonged dry season, probably caused by the El Nino phenomenon.
A TV news report said recently that only about 60 hectares of forests remain in the Wanariset Semboja area, where an orangutan rehabilitation program operates.
An official said in the TV report that the last effort to prevent fires from affecting orangutan was to create a moat around the rehabilitation site.
A radio news report said that local people in East Kalimantan faced a serious water scarcity as the water from the Mahakam River was already infiltrated by sea water. About 84,000 hectares of paddy crops could not be harvested, causing 64,000 people to face food shortages. In addition to this, the economic crisis which began in the middle of 1997 has weakened the purchasing power of the local people.
Forest fires will certainly decrease Kalimantan's forest coverage, which, according to RePProt, in 1990 reached about 395,597 square kilometers, as compared to the 2,358,566 square kilometers of total forests in Indonesia.
In fact, during the 1968-1990 period, Kalimantan's total forestry areas declined by seven million hectares, according to the Ministry of Forestry and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
Apart from forestry products, Kalimantan is also rich in natural resources such as oil, natural gas, coal and other minerals. Kalimantan also has the largest tropical rainforest in the Indomalayan realm, which supports measureless biodiversity richness (mega diversity) and a fascinating place for researchers to study natural ecosystems.
Likewise, forest fires also took place in many places in the world, Maine and Chicago in the United States, New Brunswick in Canada, Italy, France, Australia and the Amazon.
According to RePProt 1990, Indonesian forests as of 1990 reached around 2,358,566 square kilometers and became the world's lung -- regulating the world's air and climate -- besides the forests in Amazon Russia.
However, according to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a total of 29 hectares of forests disappear every minute in the world. And to make it worst, 50 percent of the world's forests have already been cleared and only 6 percent of the remaining 3.3 billion hectares of forests are protected, according to the World Wild Fund's (WWF) annual report of 1996.
Considering that such forest fires can happen anytime and anywhere around the globe, it is deemed necessary to establish an internationally-supported forest fire brigade which will have a main duty to extinguish forest fires in the world. Assisted by such a brigade, a country will be able to overcome any forest fire more quickly than seeking other help while the fire is expanding wider.
The existence of such a brigade will be very important to overcome forest fires because the loss of the forest ecosystem in any country by forest fires will also affect the international community and global ecosystem.
Therefore, relevant international organizations, like IUCN, WWF, RAMSAR, CITES and ITTO, should cooperate with the United Nations (UN) to establish such a brigade.
To overcome huge forest fires in Indonesia, Australia the United States, serious attention and action with great force is necessary. This can only be created through worldwide cooperation with such an international forest fire brigade.
The writer is an observer of environmental issues and staff member of the Wetlands International-Indonesia Program.