Indonesia seeks help fighting bush fires polluting region
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Indonesia seeks help fighting bush fires polluting region*
13 Oct 2006 06:55:09 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Ahmad Pathoni
PEKANBARU, Indonesia, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia appealed for help on
Friday to fight forest and brush fires that have spread choking smoke
over much of Southeast Asia as environment ministers from five regional
neighbours met for talks.
The ministers from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei
were due to hold talks later on Friday in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau
province, an area of Sumatra island badly affected by the raging fires.
Indonesia's neighbours have become increasingly frustrated over
Jakarta's inability to deal with the annual dry season blazes, which in
past weeks have caused serious air pollution across the region,
particularly in Malaysia and Singapore.
"We are asking for assistance in terms of equipment or expertise. We
will see what they can offer to us," Indonesian Forestry Minister Malam
Sambat Kaban told reporters.
Kaban said Indonesia expected its neighbours to recognise that the
problem was not a simple one to fix.
"That's why we will take them for a field trip on Saturday so that they
can see for themselves the situation," he said.
The fires, often started deliberately by farmers or big plantation
businesses, have been burning for weeks in parts of Indonesia, creating
a choking haze that has made many ill, shut airports and threatened
wildlife in protected forests.
Kaban said more than 75 percent of the fires were not in
government-controlled forests but in plantations and farms belonging to
private companies and local people.
He said that Central Kalimantan on the Indonesian part of Borneo island
was the worst hit, with around 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of
peat land in one area affected. Peat fires are particularly hard to put
out and can burn for months.
"This is where most smoke came from," Kaban said.
MASK-WEARING PROTESTERS
Outside a hotel where senior officials were meeting to flesh out details
for the ministerial meeting, about 20 environmental activists in face
masks held a protest over the fires.
"Business people are receiving special treatment from the government
while the people here and in neighbouring countries are suffering from
the haze. This environmental disaster is an embarrassment for
Indonesia," Johnny Mundong, head of the environmental group WALHI Riau,
told Reuters.
Visibility in some areas of Indonesia was cut to 30 metres (100 ft) last
week, forcing cars to use headlights, although there was only a slight
haze over Pekanbaru on Friday.
Each dry season, fires are illegally lit to clear land for agriculture,
blanketing Southeast Asia in smog.
Kaban said efforts to induce rain by cloud seeding to contain the fires
had been hampered by a lack of clouds.
Under pressure from its neighbours, Indonesia said on Thursday it would
ratify a Southeast Asian agreement that calls for regional cooperation
to deal with the forest fires.
The Association of South East Asian Nations approved the ASEAN Agreement
on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002, but Indonesia's parliament has
yet to ratify it, angering countries affected by the smoke, known as
haze in the region.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has pledged to use all resources
available to put out the fires, including enlisting soldiers and police
and leasing two Russian cargo aircraft that could each carry 40 tonnes
of water to douse the flames.
He has also apologised to its neighbours for the haze.
Severe fires and smog during a drought in 1997-98 made many people ill
across a wide area of Southeast Asia, cost local economies billions of
dollars and badly hit the tourism and airline sectors.