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.