Malaysia and Indonesia agree to battle fires, haze

The Jakarta Post, Medan

Indonesia and Malaysia held crisis talks here on Thursday, with an agreement reached to try to use manmade rain to put out forest fires shrouding Kuala Lumpur and its suburbs in choking haze.

The meeting, held at the Medan airport in North Sumatra, was attended by Indonesian Minister of Forestry Malam Sambat Kaban and two Malaysian Cabinet members -- environment minister Adenan Satem and plantation industry and commodity minister Peter Chin.

The ministers agreed to try to douse the flames by seeding clouds with chemicals in a bid to induce rain, a senior official at Kaban's office Koes Saparjadi was quoted by AP as saying.

However, he could not say when or where the cloud-seeding project would begin.

Koes, who accompanied Kaban in the closed-door talks, said the two sides also agreed to use the latest technology to destroy old wood instead of setting it on fire, but he did not elaborate.

The talks took place as Malaysia declared a state of emergency over the suffocating haze that has caused the air pollution index to soar.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received a phone call from Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to discuss efforts to fight the haze.

The two leaders reportedly agreed to work together to tackle the smoke problem, which has been disturbing the environment in the two countries and making people uncomfortable.

Separately, North Sumatra forestry office head Prie Supriadi said that during Thursday's meeting, Malaysia offered help to battle the forest fires in Indonesia.

Kaban meanwhile extended Indonesia's apology during the meeting over the choking smoke in Kuala Lumpur, which was from the fires, Prie added.

The issue of illegal logging was also discussed in the talks.

Prie said the Malaysian and Indonesian officials would hold another meeting to detail efforts to douse the fires, but he was not more specific.

"We still need to improve internal coordination between related agencies to overcome the problem with the forest and plantation fires," he said after the talks.

Many of the fires in North Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and Riau were believed to have been set by farmers, plantation owners and miners trying to clear land.

Prie said the thick haze currently blanketing parts of Malaysia had been blown by winds from forest fires in North Sumatra and Riau.

The areas hardest hit by fires in North Sumatra are the regencies of South Tapanuli and Karo, while in Riau, hot spots have mostly been detected in Rokan Hulu region.

Data from the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) in Polonia Medan showed that a total of 547 hot spots were found on Thursday in forests and plantations across North Sumatra and Riau.

The BMG predicted that the fires would continue until the end of this month amid the current dry season.

Officials said hundreds of rangers had been deployed to extinguish the fires but they were being hampered by the remote locations and a lack of water.

Officials were also trying to persuade farmers to stop using fire to clear land.

Forestry ministry spokesman Masyud said the government did not yet plan to impose penalties for land-clearing but "actively continued to urge people to stop the habit".

"This is not just Indonesia's problem but it is Malaysia's as well since land-clearing is also taking place there," he was quoted by AFP as saying.

The haze, an annual event, is causing anger in Malaysia.

In 1997 and 1998, choking haze caused mainly by Indonesian forest fires enveloped parts of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, for months.