Fear of Indonesian Fires Rekindled
6/24/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
There are indications that Indonesia's forests may again be at risk
of burning. Such large areas of forest landscapes have been impacted
upon by heavy selective logging and plantation development that the
conditions are very suitable for historically unprecedented blazes.
The crisis is one of tropical land use, and what is appropriate and
sustainable. The last major expanses of unfragmented rainforest in
the World, and Indonesia in particular, must be maintained. If any
development is to occur, it must include managing for expansive
forest cover, with the vast majority of land area in intact
ecological cores, and suitably placed and scaled forest management
activities within the context of this intact ecological matrix. Any
sustainable development in tropical forests requires managing for the
context. This is the difference between a sea of forest degradation
with islands of forests (parks), or a sea of intact forest, with
islands of sustainable development. There is no other way to
maintain the composition and functionality of remaining tropical
rainforest ecosystems in their natural state for the long run. Time
is running short for the international community to engage and
reverse the crisis playing itself out in rainforests--a crisis which
will largely determine the state of the biosphere in the next
millennia. A major international program of paying countries to
forgo short-term cash flow from the timber boom, and stabilizing and
restoring buffers along the receding forest frontiers, will be
required at the minimum. We all have a part to play.
g.b.
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Title: Fear of Fires Rekindled As Jakarta Is Distracted;
Asian Neighbors Doubt Indonesia Can Address Environmental
Needs
Source: International Herald Tribune
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: June 22, 1999
Byline: Michael Richardson
SINGAPORE - Recent satellite images show an ominous increase in
forest fires in Indonesia, raising concerns in neighboring Singapore,
Malaysia and Brunei that the choking blanket of smoke-borne pollution
that covered much of the region in 1997 and early 1998 - disrupting
tourism and transport and endangering public health - may soon
return.
But this time, officials say, there is even less chance of Indonesia
taking effective action to prevent the fires from starting, and to
put them out when they do, because it is struggling to contain
sectarian and separatist conflicts in various parts of the country
amid its worst economic and political crisis in more than 30 years.
Under the reformist but weak government of President B.J. Habibie
that replaced the military-backed rule of President Suharto nearly a
year ago, the companies and farmers in Indonesia that use fire as a
cheap way of clearing land for agriculture and commercial plantations
of palm oil, rubber and timber are no longer afraid to flout the law.
''With reforms, people are not scared of the authorities,'' said
Haryono Suyono, the Indonesian official who heads the national team
for disaster relief and control in Jakarta.
Officials of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank say that
the specter of renewed smog in Southeast Asia is a symptom of a wider
problem - the heavy environmental impact of the East Asian economic
slump and the political changes it has wrought.
As recession has replaced turbo-charged growth in many East Asian
countries, the tax revenues, resources and political will of
governments to tackle environmental problems they see as a relatively
low priority have declined sharply.
''The risk here is that, in the effort to restart the engine of
growth, concern about damage to the environment may lessen,'' said
Tadao Chino, president of the Asian Development Bank, which opens its
annual meeting Friday in Manila.
Several decades of economic expansion have produced severe cases of
air pollution in Asian cities, while industrial growth and demand for
raw materials and food from a burgeoning population have caused
widespread deforestation, soil degradation, water shortages and
overfishing.
Kristalina Georgieva, head of environment and social development for
the East Asian and Pacific region at the World Bank in Washington,
warned that because of the official preoccupation with reviving
growth, the region risks missing ''a pivotal opportunity'' to correct
mistakes made in the past and ''lay the foundation for a cleaner,
greener and healthier'' economic development.
''The crisis threatens to reverse recent efforts to correct the
negative environmental impacts of 'grow first, clean up later'
development policies,'' she said. ''The risk is growing that some
countries may fall once again into environmental neglect.''
The economic slowdown in East Asia has reduced demand for some raw
materials, such as logs, and lowered air pollution in many cities
because there are now fewer cars and trucks in the streets.
In Indonesia, for example, the forest-products industry, which is a
major exporter, was until recently able to disregard calls for
tighter environmental controls. But a report by the U.S. Embassy in
Jakarta said that decreased demand from Asian customers had made
Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand - where
environmental awareness and import standards are high - relatively
more important customers for the Indonesian forestry industry.
But overall, Miss Georgieva said, the balance is against the
environment.
''Logging, fishing and mining activities have grown to generate
export earnings and to support subsistence of the rural poor,'' she
said.
''Industrial and municipal treatment facilities have been forced to
cut back operations, and untreated wastewater, solid waste discharges
and illegal dumping have increased. In some countries, budget cuts
have placed environmental programs in jeopardy.''
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, is clearly among
the countries in East Asia most severely affected by the
environmental consequences of recession.
''If in 1997 we had so many problems in confronting the haze monster,
you can imagine what is going to happen now,'' with fewer resources,
Mr. Haryono said, referring to clouds of choking smoke haze from
massive forest fires in Indonesia's Borneo and Sumatra islands that
were carried by prevailing winds across Singapore, Malaysia and
Brunei and even as far as southern Thailand and the Philippines.
The Indonesian fires destroyed 5 million hectares (12 million acres)
of forest and scrub and caused an estimated $4.4 billion of damage,
mainly to tourism, air and shipping services, and public health.
The recent upsurge in bush fires in central Sumatra was close to
large networks of logging tracks and plantation areas, said Lim Hock,
director of the satellite monitoring center at the National
University of Singapore. He said he did not expect the fires to
develop ''into a widespread situation like 1997,'' because of the
dampening effect of the La Nina weather phenomenon that has followed
the El Nino-induced drought.
But Yeo Cheow Tong, the environment and health minister of Singapore,
said Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei were concerned about the
possibility of huge fires breaking out again in Indonesia at the
height of the July-August dry season.
The Singapore senior state minister for the environment, Sidek
Saniff, said that about 80 percent of the slash-and-burn forest
clearance in Indonesia was carried out for commercial purposes. As a
result, Indonesia's fellow members of the Association of South East
Asian Nations recently gave Jakarta until mid-July to implement a
policy that requires the authorities to prevent new land-clearing
fires and take action against errant plantation owners.
Malaysia and Brunei have amended their laws so that a plantation
owner is presumed to be liable for a fire near his property unless he
can prove he did not cause it. The ASEAN governments want Indonesia
to adopt this system as well.
Mr. Haryono said that Jakarta had gotten ''the firm message'' from
ASEAN to curb forest fires but could not respond effectively without
help from Singapore and Malaysia in the form of aircraft for cloud-
seeding operations, technical assistance and training in fire
monitoring.