Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said the land burned due to forest and land fires (karhutla) reached 267 thousand hectares as of October 2.
“My estimate is that the situation in September and October will still increase,” said Siti after holding a limited meeting with President Joko Widodo at the Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Tuesday (3/10).
He explained that hot spots or hotspots with an 80 percent chance of becoming fire spots reached 6,659 spots as of October 2. This figure is much higher than last year when there were only 1,128 hotspots.
Minister of the Environment Siti Nurbaya Bakar. (courtesy: KLH)
Even so, the number of hotspots has been much reduced compared to the figures in 2015 and 2019, which respectively reached 71,000 and 29,300 hotspots.
The government has also taken various steps to deal with forest and land fires, starting from weather modification technology (TMC), and extinguishing fires due to the dry season or El-Nino which is predicted to be longer. Apart from that, law enforcement steps have also been taken. The government, said Siti, has sealed dozens of companies proven to have caused the forest fires.
Aerial view of a forest fire that occurred near Bokor village, Meranti Islands Regency, Riau Province, March 15 2016. (Photo: Rony Muharrman/Antara Foto via REUTERS)
“It was also reported by the Chief of Police for law enforcement that there have been suspects and so on. From the Ministry of Environment and Forestry itself, 144 companies have received warnings, and 23 companies have been sealed in the burned areas, including in West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and South Sumatra, with PMA (foreign investment) also coming from Singapore, Malaysia too. ,” he explained.
On this occasion, Siti also denied the existence of transboundary haze into neighboring Malaysia, although she admitted that the potential still existed.
“In terms of wind opportunities, there is potential to cross but it hasn’t crossed yet, hopefully it won’t. So far there is no transboundary haze to Malaysia. “So if you say that there are no hot spots in Malaysia, if you look at the data from satellite imagery there are also those there,” he added.
November Expected to be Rainy
On the same occasion, Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), Dwikorita Karnawati, stated that according to predictions, the peak of El-Nino occurred in September. Even so, based on data from satellites, El-Nino will still last until the end of October. That way, it is estimated that rain will start to fall next November.
“November begins the transition from dry to rainy season. “So actually El-Nino will continue, it is predicted, moderately until the end of the year and will weaken in February-March and end in March, meaning it will still be quite long,” said Dwikorita.
However, due to the presence of monsoon winds from Asia, rain is predicted to start coming in November, so the influence of El-Nino will slowly begin to diminish.
“And for this reason, the public is asked that during October the conditions are still dry, so that it is not burned, it could even catch fire. “So don’t try to intentionally or unintentionally cause a fire, because extinguishing it will be difficult to do,” he stressed.
A firefighter walks in the field as smoke rises from burning trees in Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan in 2019. The smoke from the fire blanketed parts of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand. (Photo: AP)
Meanwhile, Head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) Suharyanto said that so far his party has made various efforts to extinguish these forest and land fires.
Suharyanto said that in terms of air operations, his party had deployed 35 helicopters consisting of 13 patrol helicopters and 22 water bombing helicopters which were directed at extinguishing forest and land fires in six priority provinces, namely West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Sumatra, Riau and Jambi. .
Apart from that, BNPB, said Suharyanto, has also implemented weather modification technology (TMC).
“Then for TMC, as of today (3 October) BNPB has implemented it 244 times with the amount of salt distributed 341,580 kilograms. For almost the last two months, TMC has been implemented continuously, in Riau, West Kalimantan, NTT, West Java, Jambi, DKI Jakarta, South Kalimantan and South Sumatra. “This means that in the six priority provinces, forest and land fires are all implemented by TMC,” he explained.
Smoke covers a forest during a fire in Kapuas district near Palangka Raya in Central Kalimantan province, September 30, 2019. (Photo: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)
Food Production Has the Potential to Decrease
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Harvick Hasnul Qolby said that the impact of El-Nino had a negative impact on food production. Specifically for rice, Harvick said production would fall by 1.2 million tons.
“We can currently identify approximately 1.2 million tonnes. “But if we refer to our production figures which are above 30 million tons, hopefully this will not be too seriously affected,” said Harvick.
Therefore, to anticipate this, the government has prepared strategic steps, namely securing government rice reserves (CBP) by importing.
“In accordance with the President’s direction, there is also a decline in rice production, we are trying to overcome this temporarily by carrying out import activities, as a form of food reserves, government rice reserves. “So, to reduce prices in the market, we are trying to get around this by flooding the product, hopefully this will be quite effective,” he concluded. (gi/ft)