Indonesia vows to do its best to curb forest fires

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian government said yesterday that it was doing everything in its power to contain the spread of forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan, whose thick smoke has shrouded neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

The government has been working "very hard" in the last three months to deal with the fires, State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja told local and foreign reporters on the sideline of a regional ministerial meeting on the environment.

"So it's untrue that we're not doing anything about the fires. There's been a lot of action taken," he said.

People in Sumatra and Kalimantan from all levels of the government, the military, and the community have been struggling to contain the spread of the fires, he said.

"We're dealing with a large natural disaster here," he said.

The meeting of environmental officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was opened by President Soeharto yesterday. Taking part in the biannual meeting were ministers from the nine ASEAN members: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.

The problem of the haze and forest fires has overshadowed the meeting and forced the Indonesian government to switch from the original venue of Manado, North Sulawesi, to Jakarta.

Sarwono admitted that the government had encountered problems in containing the forest fires.

Coordination

The massive disruptions caused by the haze to communications, flights and land transportation has made coordination more difficult, he said. Taking satellite images of the extent of forest fires has also been hampered, he added.

The thick haze covering Sumatra and Kalimantan made the much- relied on satellite data impossible to interpret, he said.

The minister estimated that the fires have ravaged up to 300,000 hectares of forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The fires could destroy more land and forests because the dry season was expected to last until December, he said. Normally, the rainy season begins in October in most parts of Indonesia.

Sarwono said the fires could spread to a scale similar to what happened in 1982 and 1983 when as many as three million hectares of land and forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan were ravaged.

Sarwono said that efforts launched to control the fires could now be accelerated since the government formally declared on Sunday that the fire problems were a disaster.

The forest fires have caused severe air pollution in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan and neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

Air quality in Kuala Lumpur and two other Malaysian towns, Gombak and Nilai, reached hazardous levels yesterday, prompting the Malaysian government to advise people with respiratory problems to leave town.

In Singapore, the air quality reached an unhealthy level of 107 on the Pollution Standard Index on Sunday.

Sarwono said that although Indonesia had not received any formal complaint from the Malaysian and Singaporean governments, joint-action had been discussed by the three governments.

"The public's health is our mutual concern. We're discussing what actions should be taken today, this month and in the coming months.

"There is solidarity and empathy among ASEAN members," he said. (aan)