UN declares war on Indonesian forest fires
UN declares war on Indonesian forest fires
SINGAPORE (AP): Wartime resources are needed to put out the
remaining Indonesian forest fires, but there is still a good
chance of new fires and more haze over Southeast Asia, a senior
United Nations official said yesterday.
"It is not merely firefighting anymore. It is a war against
the fires," said Jorge Illueca, assistant executive director of
the UN Environment Program.
The problem "requires large-scale wartime mobilization of
resources such as personnel, equipment, logistics and
telecommunications", Illueca told the Singapore Environment
Council.
Although the end of the El Nino weather pattern should ease
the 14-month drought, the normal dry season expected to last
until October is sufficient to produce new, widespread fires, and
resulting haze, he said.
During the dry season, local farmers and large plantation or
timber companies clear land by setting vegetation on fire. These
practices are chiefly blamed for the burning of 2 million
hectares of rain forest, timber and grassland from July last year
to this April.
The return of the same atmospheric patterns that enveloped
cities in the region with smoke and ash last year can be
expected, Illueca said.
If there are huge, uncontrolled fires, the wind patterns and
inversion layers will be the same, and the health effects will
compound respiratory and other ailments suffered last year.
Most of the major fires in East Kalimantan have been subdued,
the Singapore Meteorological Service reported yesterday, based on
satellite photograph data.
But Illueca said 30 fires were still burning out of control in
inaccessible areas where the drought had depleted the water that
the mostly ill-trained firefighters need. Efforts are aimed at
limiting the blazes with firebreaks.
He and other international environmentalists have noted that
the underground peat moss fires, which can spread rapidly and are
the hardest to extinguish, are difficult to detect by satellite.
The United States, Canada and Australia have volunteered to
send firefighting equipment and disaster managers when another
major conflagration erupts this year, Illueca said.
But he said the political turmoil in Indonesia had caused many
potential donors of money, manpower and equipment to hold back.
"The immediate future is bleak unless assistance is provided
or sufficient rain falls to stop the fires."
Although some rain had fallen, it was unlikely to be
extensive, long lasting or heavy enough to completely extinguish
even the current blazes, much less new fires that normally erupt
during the dry season.
"The rains will eventually come," Illueca said. "The fires
will go out. But not before there is irreparable loss of
biodiversity and valuable resources are destroyed."