Govt 'serious' about fighting Kalimantan forest fires

Govt 'serious' about fighting Kalimantan forest fires

By Sugianto Tandra

JAKARTA (JP): The raging forest fires in East Kalimantan may
be among the most exposed issues currently facing Indonesia, but
the concerted efforts launched to fight them have gone largely
unreported.

Media coverage has mostly focused on the magnitude of the
damage from the environmental catastrophe, both in financial
losses -- such as in lost timber revenues and the destruction of
natural biodiversity -- and health costs suffered by people in
areas affected by choking haze resulting from the fires.

However, as Busra Burhanudin, the executive secretary of the
National Disaster Management Coordination Board (Bakornas PB),
puts it: "The most important thing is that the government is
working earnestly to deal with the fires."

"The Board coordinates all the fire-fighting efforts with the
Office of the State Minister of Environment and the Ministry of
Forestry and Plantations at its core," Busra told The Jakarta
Post yesterday.

The Board was established under Presidential Decree No.
43/1990 and is chaired by the Coordinating Minister for People's
Welfare and Poverty Eradication/Chairman of the National Family
Planning Board Haryono Suyono.

Busra is an assistant to the coordinating minister.

According to Busra, there are 320 trained forest fire fighters
-- 100 of them from the Armed Forces -- who have been working
hand-in-hand since mid-January with "thousands" of local
community members in East Kalimantan.

Busra conceded that this number was "very small" compared to
the more than 127,770 hectares of forest, plantation and
farmlands areas that have burned in the province.

Some Rp 2.2 trillion (US$230 million) of losses have been
incurred due to the fires.

Busra welcomed the Ministry of Forestry and Plantation's
latest move to mobilize hundreds of forest rangers from all over
the country to help fight fires in the province.

Areas targeted have been the Kutai National Park, the Bukit
Soeharto forest reserve in Bontang regency, and other vast areas
to the north of Samarinda in Kutai regency, which are all in the
eastern part of the province.

Satellite images released recently by the Samarinda-based
Integrated Forest Fire Management organization -- a German-
sponsored body which cooperates with the forestry ministry --
have shown between 500 and 1,000 hot spots (usually indications
of fires) scattered across the eastern part of the province.

"The Integrated Forest Fires Management is one the
government's sources of data concerning the fires, besides those
from our National Aviation and Space Agency, and the
Meteorological and Geophysics Agency," Busra said.

The on-the-ground fire fighting has been combined with the use
of water bombers. Transall C-160 and Pillatus Poiter aircraft
were used to bomb the fires with water mixed with fire-dampening
chemicals.

The Transall was used only for five days because it was
rendered ineffective by the size of the areas ablaze and the high
altitude that had to be reached for the water-bombing operations.

The Pillatus has been in operation for 12 days and will
continue to be deployed for another 12 days or even longer,
depending on the Board's evaluation.

"The (water bombing) operations are manned by Indonesian Air
Force pilots," he said.

Another airborne fire-fighting effort is the cloud-seeding by
the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology
(BPPT). Unfriendly weather, however, is the reason why it has yet
to succeed, Busra said.

Budget

"We have yet to calculate the money that the government has
spent fighting the fires, but I assure you it is a great deal,"
he said.

"The government just does what it has to do," he said, adding
that he had no idea as to how big a budget had been allocated for
the whole operation.

"The board coordinates the fire-fighting efforts, but
operational budgets are provided by each of the government
institutions involved," he said.

The Ministry of Forestry and Plantation, for instance, could
use the reforestation fund which is under its auspices, with the
President's approval.

In this year's state budget, which is to take effect next
Wednesday, the government has allocated around Rp 18 billion
(US$2 million) for forest fire-fighting efforts.

Busra said efforts to fight the fires had not only been
hampered by limited financial resources, but also by the drought
in the province.

He said many offers for international assistance had been
coordinated under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
whose forthcoming activities are to include a two-week-long fire-
fighting program involving 1,000 people per day.

Busra said the UN also had provided a US$68,866 assistance
package consisting of fire-fighting equipment and training.

Other assistance has come from the People's Republic of China
which recently donated thousands of powder extinguishers,
backpack pumps and boots.

Similar assistance plus training had also been provided by
Finland, Japan, Norway, and France, Busra said.

"The board's meeting this week will decide whether or not we
still need to fight the fires and how to handle their harsh
effects. We'll also consider whether we should call for further
international aid," he said.