Habibie orders agencies to prevent forest fires
JAKARTA (JP): President B.J. Habibie ordered on Friday all government agencies and ministries to boost cooperation in preventing the outbreak of forest fires this year, warning of their potential danger to human life in the country and the region.
Speaking in a ceremony at the State Palace to commemorate World Environment Day, the President said uncontrollable fires this year could become natural disasters on the scale of the fires in 1997.
He singled out the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations to lead the campaign to stop illegal land clearing through burning, which led to the 1997 disaster.
"Such efforts must receive serious attention to prevent similar disasters from occurring again," the President said before presenting environmental awards to individuals and village cooperatives for their contributions to preserving the environment.
According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Indonesian Environment Forum (Walhi), in 1997 alone more than one million hectares of forests were ravaged, mostly in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The Ministry of Forestry's estimate is 300,000 hectares.
Reckless logging for domestic and export purposes, and plantation companies' land clearing practices, were cited among causes of the fires. On a smaller scale, slash-and-burn land clearing activities by nomadic farmers also contributed.
A thick haze covered Kalimantan and Sumatra and parts of Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand, sparking an international outcry.
More than 650 people died of drought-related diseases, with many others threatened with malnutrition from lost crops.
WWF called the forest fires a "planetary disaster". Then president Soeharto declared the disaster a national catastrophe.
Singapore's Ministry of Environment said on Thursday that satellite images detected a significant increase in "hot spots" or fires in Indonesia, due mainly to plantation fires.
"The satellite pictures have been sent to the Indonesian and Malaysian authorities as part of the subregional cooperation to deal with fires in Sumatra and Borneo," it said in a statement.
Meteorological Service of Singapore deputy director Wong Teo Suan said induced rains could limit their spread.
"It won't be like the prolonged haze we saw in 1997," Reuters quoted Wong as saying on Thursday.
The Malaysian government also dismissed fears that recent hazy skies over the capital heralded a recurrence of the smog.
Environment minister Law Hieng Ding said authorities had expressed concern to their Indonesian counterparts over the recent increase in the number of hot spots.
"Malaysia has been involved in helping Indonesia outline and adopt the new measures," Law said.
He added that latest reports pinpointed 82 hot spots in Sumatra and 50 in Kalimantan.
"They (Indonesian officials) have assured us that many of the hot spots are caused by farmers' land-clearing activities for cultivation," he said.
During Friday's ceremony, Habibie presented Kalpataru awards to Domingus dos Reis from Baucau, East Timor, for his pioneering work in converting 150 hectares of idle land into paddy fields after constructing a 1,500-meter-long irrigation channel.
Other recipients were from Central Java, South Sulawesi and East Kalimantan.
Several cities including Lumajang in East Java, Medan in North Sumatra, Jambi and Jakarta also received awards for their efforts to improve the quality of the environment. (prb)