JakartaPost-Oct 14
Indonesia’s refusal to declare the prolonged forest fires a national disaster has drawn mounting criticism as haze affects millions at home and abroad, prompting Malaysia’s carriers to cancel flights and Singapore to revive a health subsidy scheme for the first time in more than a decade. Greenpeace forest campaigner Belgis Habiba told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the scale of crisis and their impact on communities warranted declaring a national disaster. She criticized the government for failing to prevent the fires despite longstanding scientific warnings about the risk of prolonged drought linked to El Niño this year. “This situation hasn’t been handled seriously, evidenced by the failure to declare the [fires and haze] a national disaster,” she said. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) similarly criticized the government’s ineffective response and questioned its reluctance to accept foreign assistance. “The government has struggled with a crisis of its own making from the get-go. It should’ve taken stronger mitigation efforts early on,” Walhi campaigner Uli Arta Siagian said. Uli cautioned, however, that declaring a national disaster should not allow the fires to be framed as a natural calamity, potentially absolving companies of responsibility for fires on their concession areas. “Even without the status designation, a government with a sense of crisis and humanity would open the door to foreign help, because public safety should come first.” House of Representatives Commission IV member Daniel Johan, who oversees forestry, said declaring a national disaster could enable the government to allocate more funding and manpower for firefighting. “The House fully supports if the government wants to declare the forest and land fires a national disaster, because our top priority is the safety of the people in Kalimantan, Sumatra and other affected areas,” the National Awakening Party (PKB) politician said on Tuesday. The criticism followed Coordinating Political and Security Affairs Minister Dudung Abdurachman’s statement on Monday that the government had no plans to declare the fires a national disaster. “We are still capable of handling it,” Dudung said after meeting with President Prabowo Subianto and senior ministry officials, adding that the President had ordered authorities to intensify firefighting and mitigation efforts to bring the fires under control “as soon as possible”. Toxic haze has covered parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for weeks as Jakarta struggles to contain fires that have scorched large tracts of Borneo and Sumatra, with the smoke drifting across the region.
Malaysia and Singapore have offered to help Indonesia tackle the fires as the haze has disrupted air travel, prompted school closures and raised health concerns. Read more at:
