Forest fires could be repeated: ICEL
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) warned yesterday of a repeat of this year's major forest fires next year unless the government takes stronger indiscriminative legal action against forest burners.
ICEL's executive director Mas Achmad Santosa told journalists that the government should send a "deterrent message" to the perpetrators of this year's disaster.
"Unless the government does so, they will not get the message," Santosa said during the release of ICEL's yearly evaluation on the environment.
According to Santosa, the government's handling of this year's fires has been more reactive.
"It reacted only after the disaster happened and victims were reported," he said.
Santosa lamented that law enforcement was "not as tough as the public expected it to be".
He described the reinstatement of 45 wood-use permits belonging to companies which had allegedly caused this year's forest fires as "deplorable".
"It's discriminative... It is ready to incriminate those petty farmers whom they identified as scapegoats for the big businesspeople's foul work," he said.
Santosa charged that the government was taking sides with big businesses and with cynicism said one of the reinstated permits belongs to a plantation company named by the police in October as one of the suspects that caused the fires.
He said the findings of a team investigating the forest fires had not yet been announced and he urged the government to be open and explain whether or not these companies were partly responsible for the fires before reinstating their permits.
In September, the Ministry of Forestry revoked 166 wood-use permits belonging to 176 companies whose concession areas were found dotted with hot spots through satellite imaging.
These companies were given 15 days to submit a defense dossier, which according to Santosa, was accepted by the government without careful scrutiny of its contents.
"It is very likely that the government will reinstate the revoked permits to all other companies," he said.
Action Plan
In a Southeast Asian environment meeting in Singapore, ministers agreed yesterday to implement an "action plan" to prevent any recurrence of the choking haze which enveloped much of the region.
"We have identified several urgent matters to address. From now on we all have to be more sensitive to climate change," Indonesian Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said as quoted by Reuters from Singapore.
Sarwono explained that the action plan would include regional seminars on climate and weather change next year and in 1999.
"This is to ensure we are not caught off-guard the next time it happens.
"If we allow such a man-made disaster to happen again in the future, that would be equivalent to a major health and economic disaster," he added.
He said Indonesia's role in the action plan would focus on developing its fire fighting research centers.
Two of the centers will be in Central Kalimantan and Sumatra, the two main sources of the forest fires.
Sarwono said the action plan formulated by the ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would be partially funded by the Asian Development Bank, which would offer a US$1 million grant. (aan)