Gallon Environment Letter: Indonesian Fires IV
10/29/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Gallon Environment Letter: Indonesian Fires IV
Source: Gary T. Gallon
Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment
506 Victoria Ave.
Montreal, Quebec H3Y 2R5
Ph. (514) 369-0230
Fax (514) 369-3282
email: cibe@web.net
Date: 10/29/97
THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment
Vol. 1, No. 17
October 29, 1997=20
*************INDONESIAN FIRES IV (Fourth Installment)
**************INDONESIAN FIRES RE-EMERGE
JAKARTA, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Choking smog caused by forest fires in
Indonesia returned to several cities in the country on Friday, and one
Sumatran town reported zero visibility. Government officials said visibility
in several cities on Sumatra island and Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of
Borneo island, was between 100 metres and 500 metres (330-1,660 ft), and
more fires were reported on the two islands. Dense smoke from fires on
Sumatra and Borneo have spread over much of Southeast Asia in the past
several weeks, causing widespread health warnings and being blamed at least
partly for an air crash and ship collisions. "As of early this (Friday)
morning, we have received reports which say visibility in cities such as
Palembang, Bengkulu, Jambi and Padang on Sumatra is between 100 and 500
metres," a Jakarta meteorological department official said.
The lowest visibility was recorded in Rengat town in Riau province on
Sumatra, about 250 km (160 miles) southeast of Singapore. The situation is
quite serious there. The visibility is zero, which technically means it is
less than 100 metres. Residents in Padang, west Sumatra, said the city was
"dark" because of the fires. "It had been all right the last few days, even
though the sun looked like the moon because of the smog. But today, it is
like evening now morning.
***************INDONESIAN FIRES CONTINUE TO CAUSE DEATHS
Four people were killed in Indonesia and 21 are missing after a boat
carrying families from the island of Borneo collided with a tugboat.
Visibility was just 3 to 5 yards due to continuing smog and haze from
intentionally set forest fires used to clear forest and jungle areas for
commercial use. Source: New York Times, October 21, 1997.
******************50 FOREST AND PLANTATION COMPANIES IN INDONESIA MAY LOSE LICENSES
The Indonesian government has threaten to revoke the licenses of at least 50
plantation and logging and plantation companies operating in Riau, West
Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. The firms are suspected of burning forests
in their concession areas to establish new plantations and develop new
industrial forests. Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo said
last week that he had asked the 50 companies to report to his office as to
whether they had burned forests in the provinces. September 30 is the
deadline for them to file their reports. "If they fail to submit reports to
my office in the coming 15 days [beginning 16 September], the Ministry of
Forestry will soon revoke their operational licenses," the minister said.
Of the 50 companies, according to Djamaludin, 22 operate in Riau. The
remaining 28 are evenly divided bet- ween West Kalimantan (14) and East
Kalimantan (14).
The Ministry of Forestry will continue its research with the Ministry of
Agriculture and the governors of Central Kalimantan, Jambi and South Sumatra
to identify the companies responsible for burning forest in those provinces.
According to satellite photos, forests in these areas have also been burned,
causing increasingly dense haze to envelop several parts of Sumatra and
Kalimantan, and seriously affecting air quality in both Singapore and
Malaysia. The latter has declared the haze a national disaster as numeric
air quality indicators fall to =EBdangerous=ED levels, while Singapore is
considering distributing surgical masks to filter the smoke. State Minister
of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja has said that about 20 million people
are in danger of respiratory problems due to the thick smoke.
Haze has caused delays of some 800 flights in Sumatra and Kalimantan since
about early June, when the fires began to rage. Last Monday, Padang=EDs=
Tabing airport was closed as visibility decrea-sed to less than 1 kilometer,
far below the normal 3.6 kilometers. Along Central Kalimantan=EDs Mahakam
River, at least seven boat collusions have also occurred.
**********JAKARTA AIR POLLUTION COSTS BILLIONS OF RUPIAH IN HEALTH SERVICES
The World Bank has estimated that Jakarta spends about Rp 750 billion (about
US$ 250 million) annually in health services to fight air pollution caused
by gas emission, David Kuper, director of Jakarta Clean Air Project, said.
He told newsmen here Wednesday the estimated spending was based on the
recent gas emission tests which showed that 70 percent of Jakarta's air is
polluted. "There are about three million units of car in Jakarta, 63 % of
which are motorcycles, 34% private cars and the rest public transportation
including taxis," said Kuper who is also resident representative of the
Swiss non-governmental organization"Swisscontact". He said the test,
conducted in several points of Jakarta, showed that air pollution level
exceeds the tolerable limit such as in Pulogadung (East Jakarta) where
pollution level reaches 120 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The tolerable
limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO) is only 90 micrograms per
cubic meter of air.
*****TAIWAN PROVIDES MASKS AND RICE FOR INDONESIAN FIRE VICTIMS
Thousands of face masks and tons of rice are on their way to residents of
Sumatra and Kalimantan, a gift from the Government of Taiwan. According to a
press release from the Taipei Economic and Trade office received by ANTARA,
100,000 active-carbon- protection face masks was presented to the
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare, Azwar Anas, by Dr. Pao-Sun Lu, a
representative of the Taipei Economic and Trade Office.=20
**********INDONESIAN TOLL ON WILDLIFE TREMENDOUS
Indonesian officials appealed to villagers not to shoot tigers and monkeys
fleeing fires in national parks around Mount Tumpeng, Mount Merbabu and
Mount Malabar in Java. Indonesian officials appealed to villagers not to
shoot tigers and monkeys fleeing fires in national parks around Mount
Tumpeng, Mount Merbabu and Mount Malabar in Java. The new fire in the Mount
Rinjani national park on the island of Lombok is particularly worrying for
Indonesia's tourist industry as many tour groups had been redirected to
Lombok and Bali as airports closed in the worst-affected areas of Kalimantan
and Sumatra. The Antara news agency said hundreds of hectares of the park
were on fire.=20
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