Seventy
percent of 1,908 companies under the Forest Ministry’s supervision are said to
be committed to complying with state environmental standards
 |
Environmentalists have attributed most of the haze cases in Sumatra this year to
the slash-and-burn clearing of peatlands to make way for plantations, especially for
oil palms. President Joko Widodo has signaled a tougher stance against the practice.
(Antara Photo/Untung Setiawan) |
Jakarta.
Slash-and-burn clearing of forests to make way for plantations topped
Indonesia’s list of environmental problems in 2014, with several major forest
and land fires in Sumatra once again undermining the country’s fight against
deforestation, while generating choking clouds of smoke that left local
residents ill and prompt the ire of neighboring countries.
The
Indonesian office of international environmental group Greenpeace says the
number of fire incidents over the past few years have continued to increase in
Riau, a Sumatran province at the center of major forest and land fire incidents
in Indonesia in recent years.
Greenpeace
Indonesia forest campaigner Muhammad Teguh Surya says a total of 6,644 fire hot
spots were detected across Riau in 2011, and this figure has continued to rise:
8,107 hot spots in 2012 and 15,112 hot spots in 2013.
“As of
October this year, we recorded more than 21,000 fire hot spots,” Teguh told
Indonesian news portal Tempo.co earlier this month.
The Riau
administration declared a state of emergency in the province in late February
after it failed to tackle fires and haze that spread to surrounding provinces,
forcing airports to shut down and disrupting flights, as well as threatening
the health of residents.
The
National Disaster Mitigation Agency, or BNPB, said during the emergency period
that ran from Feb. 26 to April 4 that potential economic losses from the fires
and haze were estimated at Rp 20 trillion ($1.61 billion). Nearly 22,000
hectares of land were torched, including 2,400 hectares located in biosphere
reserves.
Nearly 6
million people were exposed to the haze, and 58,000 people suffered respiratory
problems as a result.
Riau was
forced to declare another state of emergency in July. Although local
firefighters, with the help of the military and police, eventually managed to
extinguish most of the fires, they kept coming back throughout the year.
BNPB
spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho has highlighted the need for better law
enforcement. In the wake of the peak of the fire and haze incidents in the
first quarter of the year, police have arrested dozens of people for allegedly
starting the blazes, but law enforcement in the sector has generally been
considered toothless, with security officers criticized for only nabbing
small-scale farmers and barely going after the large plantation companies in
whose concessions many of the hot spots are located.
“The key is
law enforcement. Peatlands burn easily, and once they burn, it’s difficult to
extinguish the fire. Prevention is more effective than putting out the fires,”
Sutopo said.
Environmentalists
have attributed most of the haze cases to the clearing of peatlands to make way
for plantations, especially for oil palms.
Local
farmers and big plantation companies been blame each other for starting the
fires, but President Joko Widodo, during a visit to Riau last month, won
activists’ praises when he threw his weight behind the smallholders.
“The best
thing to do is to give the land to people so they can use it to plant sago.
What’s made by people is usually environmentally friendly. They won’t do any
harm to nature,” he said. “However, if we give the land to corporations, they
will only switch it to monoculture plantations.”
Joko’s
predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, won plaudits from the international
community for parading as an environmental champion — pledging Indonesia’s
commitment to cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2020 using
its own resources, and by 41 percent with international support. He enacted a
moratorium on deforestation in 2011 to achieve those goals, and the ban will be
in place until next year.
Yudhoyono’s
administration, however, came under fire after Nature Climate Change journal
published in June a report of a study that found Indonesia had overtaken Brazil
as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter by deforestation, despite the
much-ballyhooed moratorium.
The report
said Indonesia’s primary forest loss totaled more than six million hectares
from 2000 to 2012, with an average increase of 47,600 hectares per year.
“By 2012,
annual primary forest loss in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than in
Brazil; 0.84 million hectares and 0.46 million hectares, respectively,” it
added.
Zenzi
Suhaidi, a campaigner manager with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or
Walhi, criticized a presidential regulation on peatland protection issued by Yudhoyono
earlier this year because it changed the status of Benoa Bay in the south of
Bali from a conservation area into a so-called buffer zone.
The change
in status allows a controversial commercial development project in the area to
proceed, despite an outcry from local fishermen and environmental activists.
“In spite
of its name, the regulation jeopardizes the sustainability of peatlands because
it compromises certain stakeholders’ interests, and the regulation provides no
deterrent effects,” Zenzi said.
He also
pointed to a clause in the regulation that rules on environmental restoration
requirements for forestry and mining firms, saying it offered a lot of room for
backroom deals.
“That was a
setback by Yudhoyono this year. The regulation ‘inadvertently’ provides room
for gratuities,” Zenzi said.
“This year
we’ve seen the effects of forest destruction, yet the previous administration
still issued that regulation to exploit [forests].”
Zenzi,
though, like other environmental activists, is encouraged by Joko’s take on
green issues, following his visit to Sungai Tohor village in Riau’s Meranti
Islands district in late November.
They
believe the president’s siding with local farmers and his particular attention
to the management of peatlands are positive signs of his commitment to the
environment. Joko, during that visit, introduced a canal system to manage the
water level in peatlands to make them more resistant to fires. He said he
wanted the system to be part of the government’s permanent policies on
Indonesia’s peatland management.
Joko also
has ordered reviews of logging permits and concessions of plantation and mining
firms, in an effort to crack down on slash-and-burn clearing of forests.
“Those
commitments may be part of a concrete agenda that will have significant
effects. And implementations of all of them must start in 2015,” Zenzi said.
He said the
government must set up a body to ensure implementation of those commitments,
suggesting a name like “the Anti-Forestry Mafia Committee,” or “the Agrarian
Conflict Resolution Board.”
“Mechanisms
[for resolutions] have to be built because the number of cases of [land]
conflict and environmental degradation are very high already, and the incidents
are widespread,” Zenzi said.
He added
Joko’s administration also faced a challenge in the form of regulations issued
during Yudhoyono’s term.
“Although
Joko’s administration has signaled its good intentions to fix our country’s
environmental problems, we cannot forget that there are many policies on the
environment arbitrarily issued by the previous administration,” he said.
Rasio Ridho
Sani, a deputy to the environment and forestry minister, however, argued that
Indonesia had made significant improvements in the environmental sector, citing
growing environmental awareness among logging, plantation and mining firms
operating in forests.
He said 70
percent of the total 1,908 companies under the ministry’s supervision were
committed to complying with the government’s environmental standards. The
figure is an increase from 49 percent in 2004.
“Seventy
percent of those corporations have refined their commitments to managing their
activities and the effects toward the environment,” Rasio said.
“This means
the environmental awareness of the business community has increased. And we
hope that the number will stay that high and increase even further,” he said.
He added
that the public’s awareness about environmental issues was also improving,
citing how more people were starting to cycle to work and were committed to
recycling their waste as part of a greener lifestyle.
“This is a
very good sign for our nation,” Rasio said.
