PRESIDENT CAME, RIAU FOREST FIRES (ALMOST) GONE by Fardah

      Jakarta, March 20, 2014 (Antara) - After more than two months of haze from forest, plantation and peat-soil fires chocking the people of Riau Province, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono finally decided to step in to end the annual fire problem.

        He cancelled his pre-election campaign agenda in Magelang (Central Java) for his Democratic Party, and decided to personally supervise the efforts to put out the fires razing Riau's forests and plantations.

          The president, while meeting with fire fighters in the Riau Province on March 15, asked for an increase in fire fighting operations and urged fire fighters to extinguish the blazes within three weeks. "The intensity of the operations must be increased and I hope they will finish in three weeks," he stated.

        The head of state, during his three-day stay in Riau, also led a roll call participated by 1,263 personnel of the Forest Fire Disaster Mitigation Task Force. They consisted of various faculties such as the military, police and members of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

          He ordered that the slash-and-burn practices to clear land for farming or plantation, must stop because it produced disturbing haze. "Riau can change and we shall change starting today. I call upon the Riau people to develop a new culture and new ways to help Riau free from haze," he elaborated.

          Hundreds of hot spots and forest fires were reported in Riau province over the past two months. The condition led to thick haze that covered most of Riau province area and caused respiratory infection among at least 55 thousand local people and temporary closure of schools. The haze also reduced visibility and disturbed the air and maritime transportations there.

        The fires have also claimed three lives in Riau. The first victim, an asthma patient from Pelalawan district, was chocked to death due to the smog haze. The second victim, identified as Muhammad Adli, 63, died after falling into burning peat-soil, Meranti Islands Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Zahwani Pandra Arsyad pointed out. The third victim, an employee of PT Surya Dumia Agrindo, died while trying to help put out fires in Bengkalis district on March 15. He was killed when a tree fell on him.

         BNPB Chief Syamsul Maarif earlier stated that the social affairs ministry will provide financial compensation to the families of the victims. Thousands of people affected by haze were provided with free medical services.

         Following the supervision and instructions by President Yudhoyono on the field, on March 18, BNPB announced that almost 90 percent of the forest and plantation fires in the Riau province was extinguished.

         "This morning we received no report of new hotspots. But hotspots are not in the form of fires only. They can also be found under the land surface," Syamsul Maarif explained on March 18.

        He, however, pointed out that a number of fires were still burning in Siak district, where peat land is up to 5 meters deep. It is believed that hotspots are still to be found beneath the peat land, he explained.

        The efforts to fight the fires continued by way of sowing salt to create cloud seeds to induce rains and also by dropping water from planes, he explained. The agency had so far sowed 40 tons of salt to induce rains and dropped 1.6 million liters of waters 1,312 times from the air.

         According to police investigations, the forest fires in the Riau province were due to deliberate action by people who want to set up new plantations.

          Therefore, Yudhoyono called for heavier punishment for those who deliberately lit the fires, and stressed that the annual forest fires on Sumatra Island must be stopped permanently.

         "I do not want to burden the next government with the same problem," Yudhoyono, who will end his presidential term this year, emphasized. 
    The president has highlighted the importance of strict and indiscriminate legal enforcement. "Light punishment for forest arson must be evaluated," the President tweeted on his account @SBYudhoyono on March 19.  He also wrote that forest arson should not be seen just as an ordinary crime because it has huge impacts and causes sufferings to many people.

          The Riau Haze Emergency Task Force had deployed 558 personnel to hunt down forest encroachers and arsonists who caused forest, plantation and peat-soil fires in Riau. 
    "In addition to chasing suspects in plantation fires, the team is also tasked with arresting suspects in protected forest and biosphere reserve encroachment in Giam Siak Kecil, Bukti Batu, Bengkalis district," chief of the Riau provincial police Brig. Gen. Condro Kirono, stated on March 16.

          Members of the team are equipped with firearms, as Chief of the National Police Gen. Sutarman has ordered his men to shoot on sight at suspects in biosphere reserve encroachment and forest fires if they resist arrest.

          "If any of them resists arrest and seems dangerous, don't hesitate to shoot at them," Sutarman declared, at the Roesmin Nurjadin air base in Pekanbaru.

         Sutarman, who accompanied by the President during the visit to Riau, asserted that he particularly could not tolerate police officers involved in an environmental crime, which has led to haze disaster in Riau. "Shoot at them, too," he ordered.

         Police have handled 44 cases of bush fires with 66 suspects including a corporation, Riau police chief spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Guntur Aryo Tejo stated recently.

        The number of suspects could increase, as there were a number of cases still in the early phase of investigation, Guntur pointed out.  
   The Indonesian government bans burning of land to clear it under Law No. 32/2009 on the Protection and Management of Environment and Government Regulation No. 4/2001 on Management of Environmental Degradation and/or Pollution linked to Forest or Land Fires.

    Possible penalties for those found guilty of breaching Law No. 32/2009 include fines and prison terms.

         Large companies, however, use fire to clear land in oil palm and timber plantations on both peat areas and non-peatlands. And for local communities and smallholder farmers, fire is also a cheap and effective tool for clearing land for slash-and-burn agriculture and to access swamps.

         Extreme weather events, such as ENSO (El Niño - Southern Oscillation) events and prolonged droughts, make areas more prone to fires.

        In 1982-83 and 1994, the El Nino-induced forest fires destroyed some 6.4 million hectares of forest, particularly in East Kalimantan. ***3***
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    EDITED BY INE