Haze puts Riau in state of emergency

JAKARTA (JP): A state of emergency was declared for land, air and sea travel in Riau on Wednesday after smoke from forest fires reduced visibility to 200 meters in parts of the province.

Neighboring Malaysia ordered officials on Wednesday to prepare a national haze action plan after environmentalists in Jakarta warned that this year's forest fires would be worse than the incidence in 1997 which caused catastrophic health and traffic problems across Southeast Asia.

From Riau's capital Pekanbaru, Antara reported a worsening haze enveloping the city, with the shadowy light at noon resembling dusk. Visibility was 200 meters, with residents forced to don masks and turn on their vehicle lights, the news agency said.

It quoted residents as saying the smoke shrouding the city since Tuesday resembled that in 1997.

An official from the Riau office of the communications ministry, Ismanu, said a state of emergency was in effect for all types of transportation.

"We have instructed all ministry units in Riau to remind ship captains and drivers to increase their state of alert during their travels," he was quoted as saying by the agency.

The air pollution standard index in Pekanbaru far exceeded the normal range of from zero to 50, AFP reported.

An official of Riau's branch of the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) said the index reached 978 on July 27, and was 568 on Monday and 368 on Tuesday.

"It is extremely dangerous," said the official, identified as Ardi.

The Indonesian Forum For Environment (Walhi) said that 1997 forest fires destroyed 10 million hectares and caused losses of Rp 60 trillion (US$ 8.8 billion), an average loss of Rp 6 million per hectare.

Smoke from the fires covered an area of three million square kilometers, including parts of the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Australia, Longgena Ginting of Walhi said.

Walhi warned that with predictions for a hotter and longer dry season this year, it would take only one month for the fires to reach the devastating level of two years ago.

From Malaysia, AFP reported that Minister of Science, Technology and Environment Law Hieng Ding instructed all environmental departments in Malaysia's 13 states to step up enforcement against open burning and to check vehicular and industrial emissions.

The Riau office of the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations acknowledged that the smoke obstructed traffic in the Strait of Malacca.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite images indicated on Aug. 1 that there were 341 hot spots in Sumatra and 100 in Kalimantan, Walhi said.

The hot spots spread rapidly to other areas in both islands according to Aug. 3 satellite images, Walhi revealed.

In two days, hot spots spread from Sanggau in West Kalimantan to the provincial capital Pontianak, and to Central Kalimantan.

"The hot spots are mostly identical with those in the 1997 fires," said Ginting, head of Walhi's forestry advocacy program.

He added that 94 percent of the sites were large plantations and forestry companies.

He accused the government of failing to take action against plantation companies despite evidence showing the 1997 forest fires were mainly due to their land-clearing activities.

Walhi demanded the government halt conversion of forest areas into plantations by stopping the issuance of permits for large plantations and forest concessions.

The plantations ministry announced in March it would simplify the licensing procedure for developing new plantation areas.

The government formed a coordinating body from the national to community level to prevent and fight forest fires, but Walhi said its accompanying early warning system was yet to be effective.

Of the 11 companies sued by Walhi in South Sumatra, two companies have been found guilty of burning tracts of forest and failing to prevent fires. Ginting said the verdict proved that farmers, often blamed for causing fires through their land- clearing activities, were not in the wrong.

Farmers on average clear land of only two hectares and act to prevent fires by making furrows around the plots, he said.

"Walhi believes the El Nino phenomenon has become the scapegoat all this time for the government and companies to avoid taking responsibility," Ginting said.

Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution announced a full alert on the situation on Tuesday, another Walhi activist, Joko Waluyo, said.

However, Siagano, a forestry official in Sampit, West Kalimantan, said the level of smoke was still far below that recorded in 1997 or last year.

"This is already the beginning of the dry season here, and people are clearing their land at this time of the year," he was quoted as saying by AFP.

Although about 200 forest rangers in the district have been put on standby, he said they lacked fire-fighting equipment. (05)