Jakarta Globe – AFP, Jun 25, 2014
Jakarta. Indonesia’s disaster agency warned on Wednesday that haze could return to neighboring Singapore and Malaysia after a huge jump in forest fires in a province at the center of a smog crisis last year.
Jakarta. Indonesia’s disaster agency warned on Wednesday that haze could return to neighboring Singapore and Malaysia after a huge jump in forest fires in a province at the center of a smog crisis last year.
Fires in
Riau province, on western Sumatra island, caused the worst outbreak of haze in
Southeast Asia for more than a decade in June last year, affecting daily life
for millions and sparking a heated diplomatic row.
June is the
start of the forest fire season — when slash-and-burn techniques are used to
clear land quickly and cheaply, often for palm oil plantations — and disaster
officials said the number of blazes in Riau was rising quickly.
A total of
366 “hot spots” — either forest fires or areas likely to soon go up in flames —
had been detected in the province on Wednesday, up from 97 the previous day,
according to disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
“We must be
on alert as the wind is traveling east-northeast. The likelihood of the smog
reaching Singapore and Malaysia is getting higher,” Nugroho said.
Experts
have said that an expected El Nino weather phenomenon later this year is likely
to fan the forest fires as conditions become drier than usual.
El Nino
drags precipitation across the Pacific Ocean, leaving countries including
Indonesia drier and parts of the Americas wetter.
However the
latest outbreak of forest fires was yet to have any serious impact on daily
life in Sumatra, and the skies over Singapore were still free of haze.
Authorities
said that most of the forest fires last year were deliberately lit to clear
land. Slash-and-burn is a traditional farming technique, but environmental
groups also accuse big companies of using the method.
According
to the Washington-based World Resources Institute, a large number of the fires
detected recently have been within the concessions of paper and palm oil
companies and their suppliers.
It found 75
hot spots in the concessions of suppliers to Asia Pulp & Paper between June
17 and June 23, and 43 hot spots in zones of suppliers to Asia Pacific
Resources International Limited (April) in the same period, using data from
satellite mapping tools.
APRIL said
it had agreed to support the fire-fighting effort, lending its water pumps and
a company helicopter. APP did not immediately comment.
Agence France-Presse
No comments:
Post a Comment