Asia Fire Crisis Not Over Yet, Says Forest Expert
12/17/97
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Headline: Asia Fire Crisis Not Over Yet, Says Forest Expert
Source: Reuters
Date: 12/17/97
Author: Lewa Pardomuan
Copyright 1997: Reuters Limited
Copyright 1997: Cable News Network, Inc. A Time Warner Company
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
JAKARTA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The start of the rainy season
may have extinguished Indonesia's forest fires, but a more
serious threat to the world environment could exist in the
form of carbon dioxide released by underground peat fires.
``The problem is not over yet. Carbon dioxide will be
released by the peat land, especially in central Kalimantan,
because the fire is still burning underground,'' said Joko
Waluyo, a forest expert with the Indonesian Forum for
Environment (Walhi).
``We believe the carbon dioxide will contribute to the
global warming because such gas is similar to the one
emitted by industry and cars,'' Waluyo told Reuters by
telephone.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday an
estimated one million hectares (2.5 million acres) of peat
forest still burning in Indonesia was likely to release more
carbon dioxide in the next six months than ``the entire
annual contribution from cars and power stations in Western
Europe.''
It said the blazes in Indonesia set peat deposits on fire
and these would continue to burn deep underground for
months, even years.
Delegates to the U.N. conference on global warming in Japan
agreed last week to cut greenhouse gas emissions by
industrialised countries by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels in
the period 2008-2012. Global warming is caused by several
gases, with carbon dioxide the main culprit.
Fires have destroyed up to 185,000 hectares of forest in
Sumatra and Kalimantan and caused an estimated loss of $22.4
million.
The fires also sent a choking haze over neighbouring
Singapore and Malaysia for several weeks earlier in the
year. The fires started mainly as timber and plantation
companies tried to clear land and then spread due to the
prolonged drought, blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon.
Waluyo said the meteorology office had predicted that the
past month's rains were insufficient to completely put out
the peat fires and that the next dry season will start again
in April.
``We also have reports that forestry companies have started
to burn land again in Sumatra because of the start of the
rainy season.
``This is going to be dangerous...we see the government is
not serious in dealing with this matter,'' he said.
The WWF said it expected the fires to flare again in the
next dry season.
The El Nino phenomenon -- the result of a warming of Pacific
waters off South America that affects global weather
patterns -- had exacerbated the fires by causing tinder-box
conditions in previously moist tropical forest.
In Australia, bushfires that are still burning have
destroyed an estimated 600,000 hectares of bush and crops in
the past month and killed five people and thousands of
domestic and wild animals.
``In Australia, major fires can be seen as a direct result
of drier conditions in 1997. Large areas of inland New South
Wales (Australia's most populous state), already fragmented
by clearing, are likely to be further degraded as a result
of the massive fires,'' said the WWF report ``The Year The
World Caught Fire.''
In Papua New Guinea, which shares New Guinea island with
Indonesia, the WWF said thousands of square kilometres
(miles) of grassland and rainforest have been burnt, mainly
from careless land-clearance fires ignited by villagers
searching for food as the worst drought in 50 years grips
the South Pacific nation.
``Enormous areas of grasslands and rainforests are being
destroyed by fire in Papua New Guinea. Many parts of the
highlands have been burning since at least September, and
witnesses speak of a pall of smoke covering much of the
island,'' the WWF report said.