Jakarta Globe, Reuters & Bloomberg, June 22, 2013
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| An image released by NASA taken on June 21 by the Terra satellite shows clouds and smoke trails from fires in Sumatra drifting into Malaysia and Singapore (NASA Photo) |
Indonesia
deployed three helicopters and one rain-making plane on Friday night to create
artificial rain above Riau as the province continues to battle catastrophic
forest fires.
“We have
two Bolco helicopter and one Colibri helicopter all equipped with bamboo
buckets, and we also have deployed the rain-making Casa 212 this morning,”
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said on
Saturday.
Sutopo said
500 personnel from the military and the National Police would also be deployed
to Riau to battle the fires, while helicopters would be used to drop water and
the Casa 212 would be tasked with cloud seeding.
The
national government has earmarked around Rp 200 billion ($20 million) to handle
the disaster.
Indonesia
named eight companies with fires on their land on Friday, including
Jakarta-based Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology (Smart) and Asia Pacific
Resources International (April). The government, which said it would take
action against anyone responsible for the disaster, is expected to name more
companies.
An April
statement said it and third-party suppliers had a “strict no-burn policy” for
all concessions in Indonesia.
An analysis
of satellite maps and government data by Reuters and the think-tank World
Resources Institute also revealed spot fires on land licensed to
Singapore-listed First Resources and Indonesia’s Provident Agro. The analysis
did not reveal the cause of the fires or who was at fault.
A
spokeswoman for Golden Agri Resources, Smart’s Singapore-listed parent, said it
knew of no hotspots on its concessions.
Despite the
“zero burning” policies, the environmental group Greenpeace said many producers
and traders drive deforestation and destruction of peatland by buying palm oil
from third-party suppliers or on the open market.
“Fine words
only go so far but can these companies guarantee that they are not laundering
dirty palm oil on to international markets?” Greenpeace said in a statement.
“The lack
of government transparency makes it very hard for independent monitoring: concession
maps are incomplete, data is lacking and we clearly have weak enforcement of
laws.”
Singapore’s
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday he expressed “serious concern” in
a letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and requested evidence
that Singaporean or Malaysian companies were responsible for the “illegal
burning,” as suggested by some Indonesian officials.
Disputes
between the two neighbors flare up regularly over haze. The Malay Peninsula has
been plagued for decades by forest fires in Sumatra to the west and Kalimantan
to the east.
Singapore
has warned the haze could last for weeks. On the sixth day of the thick smoke,
the Lion City’s pollution index returned to the “hazardous” zone with readings
above 300, after spiking to a record 401 on Friday afternoon, a level
considered potentially life-threatening for the ill and the elderly.
The smell
of burned wood filled the air and visibility was poor, with buildings shrouded
in a grey gauze. Streets in the clean and green city-state, which usually
enjoys clear skies, were far less crowded than on a typical Saturday when
people go out to shop, meet in outdoor cafes and have fun at the park.
Singapore’s
Ministry of Education advised public schools to cancel all activities planned
for the holiday month of June.
StarHub, a
cable television and Internet provider, said it was providing a free preview of
more than 170 channels over the weekend “as we stay home to escape the
unbearable haze.”
The cost of
the smog for Singapore, a major financial center and tourist destination, could
end up being hundreds of millions of dollars, brokerage CLSA said in a report.
In
Malaysia, the haze spread north. Air quality in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and
in several surrounding areas worsened into the “unhealthy” zone.
The air
quality was now “unhealthy” in 17 areas of Malaysia and “very unhealthy” in one
area.
Hadi
Daryanto, the general secretary of Indonesia’s Forestry Ministry, said a team
led by Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan was now in Riau, in Sumatra, “to find
out the exact locations of the hotspots.”
“But we
have to be very careful in any legal action,” he said. “We have to really find
out what happened, why the fires happened and so on. This could be due
to negligence, too.”
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