Minister Juwono blames timber estates for forest fires

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Environment Juwono Sudarsono said yesterday that timber estates were responsible for about 65 percent of the current forest fires in East Kalimantan.

The minister said 65 percent of more than 150,000 hectares of forest razed by fires this year belonged to commercial companies and added the fires were being lit deliberately for land-clearing purposes.

"The land-clearing activities are intentional, but the problem is that the fires have become uncontrollable as they were not well monitored," Juwono said after meeting with President Soeharto at the latter's private residence on Jl. Cendana, Central Jakarta.

Juwono accompanied the President in a meeting with Klaus Topfer, the executive director of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), to discuss the organization's contribution to help control forest fires in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia.

"The President welcomes the UNEP's offer and ordered me to follow up the cooperation," Juwono said.

Topfer also handed over a letter from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the President. The UN leader promised in the letter to do his best to assist in the management of the fires and their impacts.

"It is our main aim to come to a very, very proper judgment on what is needed, what can be integrated, what is also, on the technical and financial side, necessary to decrease at least the negative repercussions to the people living there," Topfer explained after the meeting. He declined to elaborate.

This year's disaster in East Kalimantan is more serious than last year's because then fires destroyed only 37,092 hectares of the province.

Most of the land-clearing is aimed at opening new oil palm plantations, and burning is regarded as the cheapest method.

The southern part of the province, including Samarinda, Balikpapan, the Kutai National Park and Bukit Soeharto National Park are considered prone to fires.

The rainy season has started in the north, in Tarakan and Bulungan regencies.

After a separate meeting with the President yesterday, East Kalimantan Governor H.M. Ardans said the fires from 808 hot spots had caused more than Rp 2.1 trillion (US$220 million) in material losses in last three months, excluding damage to the province's rich forestry biodiversity.

Juwono said ministers of environment from the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would hold a-two day meeting starting tomorrow in Brunei.

"We hope to establish a center or an agency to tackle forest and land fires in the whole ASEAN region," Juwono remarked.

The smog from the fires is spreading across the region especially Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei sacked Haji Johar Dato Haji Noodin as his minister of health last month for his failure to protect the sultanate's citizens from the noxious fumes.

"Personally I think it will require at least $2 billion to $3 billion (to extinguish the fires)," Juwono noted.

The minister will also propose that ASEAN jointly purchases Canadian-made CL-205 water bombers, regarded as one of the most sophisticated fire-fighting aircraft in the world.

Minister of Forestry Sumahadi said last week that the government would need at least six CL-205 water bombers to combat the fires in East Kalimantan.

"The President told me that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien had offered his help in the form of the planes," Juwono noted.

Soeharto and Chretien talked to each other by telephone earlier this week. (prb)