Red tape blamed for government's slow progress on fires

PC Naommy, Jakarta

One reason why it takes so long to put out fires here is that the essential information needed winds up and down the halls of officialdom, a forest fire expert said.

Forest fire expert Bambang Hero Saharjo from the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) cited on Saturday the fact that at the level of the local authorities, it normally takes two weeks to get hot spot coordinates -- at the fastest -- due to red tape.

"So it would be too late, even for the forest fire brigades to take action in putting out the fires," said Bambang.

An official at the Ministry of Forestry's information center, however, said local officials should take the initiative themselves to access the relevant information on the ministry's website.

Forest fires recur every dry season despite various measures at the regional, national and local level. The last fires occurred last month, leading to haze which disrupted flights and endangered the health of people both at home and in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.

Bambang added that while the slash and burn method can still, under certain conditions, be tolerated for farmers with land holdings under two hectares, it is not allowed for plantation companies.

The economic crisis and high operational costs of heavy equipment for land clearing have been cited as excuses for the continued use of slash and burn methods by companies.

Meanwhile, measures to prevent fires are still ignored, such as information on how to regulate land clearing in a safe way, meteorologist Edi Santoso said.

Edi, who works at the Agency For the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) suggested that lack of coordination hampered the application of technology.

His colleague Izzat Farahidy added, "The use of technology to prevent fires will not be seen as binding unless local governments support its implementation through the law."

The Agency has already developed the Fire Danger Rating System (FDRS), a technology adopted from Canada that helps local governments to prevent fires caused by the slash and burn agriculture.

The information which local authorities, companies and farmers could use, Edi said, includes "recommendations on regulating when, how, and where the slash and burn method could be applied."

The country currently has 126 automatic weather stations complete with the FDRS technology and plans to add 21 new stations in West and Central Kalimantan, South and North Sumatra, and Riau, which areas normally have a high number of hot spots.

The government developed the technology in the aftermath of the worst forest and scrub fires in 1997/1998 which caused a loss of 11.7 million hectares of forest and some US$10 billion worth of timber and disruption of economic activities.

Other information provided by the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) and the forestry ministry include that of wind direction, the incidence of rain, and information on trees and shrubs that are highly combustible.

The offices' analysis gives four forest fire indicators: Blue meaning low risk, green for medium risk, yellow for high risk, and red for extreme conditions.

Meteorologist Edi said that while the slash and burn method was the cheapest, people should refer to the safer methods of agriculture used by traditional farmers. He said they would take into account the direction of the wind, humidity and the position of the sun before starting to clear land.