‘Indonesia doing its best to fight haze’

Analysts say much of it is caused by fires started in the massive plantations that dot the island of Sumatra.

In Pakanbaru alone more than 60 flights were cancelled in the last few days due to the haze that exacerbates pilots’ visibility to navigate the planes. Now, seasonal monsoon winds have also blown the haze to the northeast, where it has affected Thailand and possibly Cambodia as well. Around 3,700 soldiers and 8,000 policemen has been sent to fight the fire on ground, with the aforementioned aircrafts providing aerial support.

The country’s disaster management agency, BNPB, yesterday said it is open to assistance from neighbours Singapore and Malaysia in acquiring larger water-bombers such as the Russian-made Beriev Be-200 or the CL-245 from Canada.

“This is the first time we’ve come forward because we are afraid that if we just stay silent, the problem will just get worse and worse”, Supawan Chanasongkhram said yesterday on behalf of the demonstrators. He added that the BNPB has coordinated with police, the military, forestry and environment ministry and volunteers to address this issue.

“As such, we are begging you to communicate with your government to take the responsibility and give its commitment to solve the issue”.

Suchart Hirankanokkul, adviser to the Thai Hotels Association (Southern Chapter), said the Prayut government should ask the Indonesian ambassador or embassy representative what emergency measures Indonesia will use to tackle the problem. As a partial solution to this problem, BNPB relies on its thirteen helicopters to pour water over the fire. It also coordinated with the military to create artificial rain.

The blame, according to regional observers, lies in Indonesia’s failure to rein in the powerful corporations that run the increasingly lucrative oil palm plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

As at 11am at present in Singapore, the 24-hour toxin customary symbol was at 115is that149, in the wrong vary, and of course the three-hour Pressure was also 115. “He was alleged as a mastermind of the current forest fire”, Badrodin said in Sukabumi, West Java on Tuesday.

JAKARTA, Indonesia _ Indonesia, which set a deadline two weeks ago to put out forest fires that have covered parts of Southeast Asia with haze, said it’s hard to push for a timeline with unpredictable weather patterns and farmers still burning to clear land.

Singapore’s government has so far maintained a calm approach, focusing its comments mostly on offers to help their Indonesian counterparts to combat the forest fire.

Therefore, Singapore has called on seven major retailing markets including NTUC FairPrice, Watsons, Guardian, 7-Eleven and IKEA to declare that their wood, paper and pulp products are procured from sustainable sources, namely not from the companies accused of causing fires in Indonesia.

The haze has blanketed parts of Malaysia and Singapore for about a month. Indonesia saw severe forest fire at that time, covering 9.8 million hectares of affected areas, emitted around 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air.