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Jokowi calls in army to help fight haze-causing Indonesian fires

A girl carrying her brother as firefighters try to extinguish a peatland fire near her house in South Sumatra on Oct 4, 2023

OCT 9, 2023

JAKARTA – Indonesian President Joko Widodo said he has ordered the military and police to tackle forest fires after neighbouring countries complained that smoke from the burning was making the air unhealthy.

“When there is fire, there will be smoke, and if there is wind, it can get anywhere,” Mr Widodo, also known as Jokowi, told reporters in Jakarta on Saturday.

“I have ordered the military chief and the police to handle every hot spot, however small, immediately.”


Singapore and Malaysia have complained about the spread of choking haze from the fires.

Singapore’s 24-hour PSI air pollution readings in the centre and east of the island rose above 100 on Saturday, a level described as “unhealthy”, according to the National Environment Agency website.

They dropped below 100 on Sunday.

Thirteen areas in Peninsular Malaysia recorded unhealthy air quality on Sunday with the highest reading of 163 in Melaka and Batu Pahat in Johor, according to the Air Pollutant Index of Malaysia’s website.



Haze is a recurring problem in South-east Asia, disrupting tourism, causing severe respiratory illness and costing local economies billions of dollars.

It mostly originates from natural or man-made fires in Indonesia and Malaysia during the dry season.

Many of the blazes result from illegal burning to clear farmland for cash crops such as oil palm, a practice that persists despite years of government efforts to stamp it out.

Fires are often the worst at the height of the dry season in August and September, but in El Nino years, rains are often delayed, allowing the burning to spread into October and beyond.

Almost 3,000 hot spots were detected in Indonesia in mid-September, with Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo island, called Kalimantan, accounting for more than two-thirds, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency.

“In this prolonged dry season, the heat is above normal,” Mr Widodo said. “Land and forest fires don’t just happen in Indonesia but also in the US, Canada. Here we can still control it better.”

He said the situation is far different from the strong El Nino in 2015, when haze blanketed the region.

During that season, about 2.6 million ha burned and the haze lingered for weeks, causing more than 100,000 premature deaths, according to researchers at Harvard and Columbia universities. In the El Nino of 1997, almost twice as much land burned.

Indonesia’s weather bureau has said the wet season may be delayed this year until late October or November in Sumatra and Kalimantan, and even as late as December in some parts of the country.

 BLOOMBERG

Indonesia says no transboundary haze to Malaysia as bickering over air quality continues

Indonesia’s environment minister said forest fires in the country had declined and measures were being taken to tackle the issue but ‘not based upon Malaysia’s request’

Asean officials have pledged to minimise and eventually eliminate crop burning in the region amid concerns about cross-border haze


Reuters
6 Oct, 2023

Forest fires in some parts of Indonesia have declined and no haze had been detected moving to Malaysia, Indonesia’s environment minister said on Friday, a day after its neighbour urged Jakarta to take action as air quality worsened.
Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Malaysia’s minister of natural resources, environment and climate change, said he had asked his Indonesian counterpart to address the haze, as air quality worsens, saying haze should not be a new normal.

“I do not know what basis that Malaysia used in giving those statements. We are working not based upon Malaysia’s request,” Indonesia’s environment minister Siti Nurbaya said.

Southeast Asia haze crisis sparks fresh blame game, calls to deter ‘bad apples’
3 Oct 2023


Fires that sent haze billowing across the region in 2015 and 2019 burned millions of hectares of land and produced record-breaking emissions, according to scientists.

Almost every dry season, smoke from fires to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia blankets much of the region, bringing health risks and concerning tourist operators and airlines.

The Indonesian minister also said the number of forest fires in some parts of Sumatra and Borneo had declined and the government continues to put out the blazes.

Malaysia blames Indonesia for haze sparked by cross-border fires, prompting rebuff from Jakarta



Her remarks came as Southeast Asian agriculture and forestry ministers agreed to take collective action to minimise and eventually eliminate crop burning in the region.

In a statement after a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Malaysia, members recognised “the adverse environmental and health impacts of crop burning practices,” and committed to collectively reduce and phase it out.

“This will require collective efforts, sustained commitment, and collaboration among [Asean members] farmers, local communities, and relevant stakeholders,” it said.

Southeast Asian ministers commit to eventual elimination of crop burning

A farmer burns a paddy field to clear the land for a new crop in Thailand's Nakhonsawan province, 270km north of Bangkok 
PHOTO: Reuters

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 05, 2023 

KUALA LUMPUR - Southeast Asian agriculture and forestry ministers have agreed to take collective action to minimise and eventually eliminate crop burning in the region, amid deteriorating air quality and concern about cross-border haze.

In a statement after a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Malaysia, members recognised "the adverse environmental and health impacts of crop burning practices," and committed to collectively reduce and phase it out.

"The meeting recognised the need for sustainable alternatives to crop burning, including the adoption of innovative and environmentally friendly agricultural practices," it said.

The pledge comes as air quality hit unhealthy levels in several parts of Malaysia in recent days and after weeks of elevated pollution in Indonesia.

Malaysia's environment minister in an interview with Reuters on Thursday (Oct 5) called on Indonesia and Asean to take action as air quality worsens, blaming it on fires from crop burning in Indonesia.

Almost every dry season, smoke from fires to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia blankets much of the region, bringing risks to public health and worrying tourist operators and airlines. Many of the companies that own these plantations are foreign or foreign-listed.

Jakarta has denied detecting any smoke drifting over its borders into Malaysia.

The Asean meeting agreed to develop and implement educational campaigns and training programmes on sustainable agricultural practices, providing technical guidance on alternative methods for land clearing.

"This will require collective efforts, sustained commitment, and collaboration among (Asean members) farmers, local communities, and relevant stakeholders," it said.

The ministers also agreed to review and update existing regulations and guidelines with the aim of phasing out the use of antimicrobials in food production, they said.

 

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BOYCOTT PALM OIL

Malaysia’s ‘orangutan diplomacy’ plan slammed as ‘obscene’

Heather Chen, CNN
Sun, May 12, 2024 

China has “panda diplomacy,” Australia parades koalas at global summits – and now Malaysia plans to join the Asia-Pacific trend for adorable ambassadors, by gifting orangutans to countries that buy its palm oil.

But the idea has come under heavy criticism from conservationists, who note that palm oil is one of the biggest factors behind the great apes’ dwindling numbers – with one leading conservation professor calling the plan “obscene.”

The world’s most widely consumed vegetable oil, palm oil is used in everything from shampoo and soaps to ice cream. Clearing land for palm oil plantations has been a major driver of deforestation, the greatest threat to the survival of critically endangered orangutans.

Malaysia is the world’s second-biggest exporter of palm oil after Indonesia.

Production is vital to the economy and government officials have gone to great lengths in recent years to defend and rebrand the industry by introducing initiatives to support sustainability – such as improving agricultural practices and issuing government-endorsed green certificates to companies that meet sustainability standards.

At a biodiversity summit outside the capital Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Malaysia’s minister for plantations and commodities announced plans for “orangutan diplomacy.” Hoping to emulate Chinese panda diplomacy – in which Beijing exerts soft power by loaning its beloved national animal to zoos overseas - the Malaysian government hopes to gift orangutans to some of its biggest trading partners, he said.

Those partners “are increasingly concerned over the impact of agricultural commodities on the climate,” said minister Johari Abdul Ghani. “It is a diplomatic strategy where it would be advantageous to trading partners and foreign relations, especially in major importing countries like the EU, India and China.”

Ghani did not provide further details such as a timeline or how the animals would be acquired – but welcomed palm oil giants to “collaborate” with local environmental groups in caring for the endangered giant apes.

“This will be a manifestation of how Malaysia conserves wildlife species and maintains the sustainability of our forests, especially in the palm oil plantation industry,” he said.

Halved oil palm kernels are seen on the trade floor of a commodities conference and exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. - Tengku Bahar/AFP/Getty Images

The announcement drew swift backlash from conservationists. “It is obscene, repugnant and extraordinarily hypocritical to destroy rainforests where orangutans live, take them away and give them as gifts to curry favor with other nations,” Stuart Pimm, chair of conservation ecology at Duke University, told CNN. “It totally goes against how we should be protecting them and our planet.”

Pimm also noted that cuddly-animal charm offensives were normally followed by wider long-term conservation efforts.

“There is a huge difference between what Malaysia is proposing and what China has done for giant pandas,” he said. “China has state-of-the-art facilities for pandas and more importantly, has established protected areas that safeguard wild panda populations. What Malaysia’s government is proposing is hardly anything comparable.”

CNN has reached out to Ghani, and Malaysia’s Ministry of Plantation and Commodities, for further comment about the proposed orangutan program and how it plans to ensure that it will support conservation and sustainability.

A panda basks in the sun at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. - VCG/Visual China Group/Getty Images

Environmental and conservation groups also strongly opposed the idea, calling on Malaysian officials to instead work on reversing deforestation rates, which they largely blame on palm oil.

Between 2001 and 2019, the country lost more than 8 million hectares (19 million acres) of tree cover, according to a 2022 report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an area nearly as large as South Carolina.

“Malaysia’s land surface area was once almost covered with forest,” the WWF said in its forestry report, which cited enduring threats such as palm oil cultivation and unsustainable logging.

According to a 2023 report by climate watchdog Rimba Watch, a further 2.3 million hectares of forests in Malaysia have been earmarked for palm oil production.

“Orangutan diplomacy will not solve Malaysia’s deforestation crisis,” Heng Kiah Chun, a regional campaign strategist for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, told CNN. “If the Malaysian government is truly committed to biodiversity conservation, it should implement policies against deforestation instead.”

Conservation ‘crucial’

Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling animals, known to spend most of their lives swinging through canopies of tropical rainforests.

Researchers have noted their incredible intelligence and ability to demonstrate skills such as instinctively treating wounds with medicinal herbs or using tree branches, sticks and stones as tools to break open hard objects like nuts.

The gentle apes, once found in greater numbers across Southeast Asia, have experienced sharp population declines, according to a WWF Malaysia report – particularly on Borneo, the large island shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. “In 1973, Borneo was home to an estimated 288,500 orangutans. By 2012, their numbers had dropped by almost two-thirds, to 104,700 and the decline has continued,” the WWF report said.

There are still believed to be around 100,000 orangutans left on Borneo, and 14,000 on Indonesia’s Sumatra island, it added.

“Orangutans are critically endangered. Therefore it is crucial that all remaining orangutan habitats are conserved,” WWF Malaysia told CNN in a statement.

A commitment to improving forest management and the sustainable production of palm oil would be “the best way to showcase Malaysia’s commitment to biodiversity conservation,” WWF Malaysia said.

“Orangutan conservation is best achieved by ensuring the protection and conservation of their natural habitats – and that no further forest conversion into palm oil plantations is allowed.”

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Capitalism Endangers Orangutan

Orangutans Displaced, Killed by Indonesian Forest Fires
Intentionally lit forest fires on the island of Borneo are killing Southeast Asia's endangered orangutans, conservationists warn. The fires are lit annually to clear land for oil palm plantations and agricultural fields. Many of the blazes quickly rage out of control.

A mother orangutan and her baby rest in a tree in Gunung Palung National Park on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Forest fires set intentionally to clear farmland have been raging on Borneo for weeks, killing about a thousand orangutans and forcing others to flee the forests. Experts say if the pace of destruction continues, the animals may be extinct within a decade.

"Fires Threaten Orangutans"
11 November 2006

Deliberate fires to clear land around the park have burned out of control and are destroying thousands of hectares of forest. Orangutans in the park have fled to the interior to escape the fires. But these interior forests are at risk. And orangutans outside the park are facing grave danger.

Orphaned orangutans are arriving in OFI's Care Center nearly every day. Your donations will help buy food, medicine and staff support to care for them.

Click here to Help Fight the Fires.

Cargill today owns and operates five palm plantations through its business unit CTP Holdings. Two are in Indonesia: one on the island of Sumatra (P.T. Hindoli) and one on the island of Borneo in Kalimantan (Harapan Sawit Lestari).

Cargill and Temasek Holdings Invest in Palm Plantations in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

Singapore — Cargill and Temasek Holdings have acquired CDC Group plc’s palm plantation interests in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. These include a plantation in Kalimantan (Indonesia) and a majority shareholding in four other plantations in the region. One of these plantations is located in Sumatra (Indonesia), with the other three in Higaturu, Milne Bay and Poliamba (Papua New Guinea).

The new venture is registered in Singapore as CTP Holdings Pte Ltd (CTP). Cargill is the majority shareholder of CTP and will assume managerial and operational responsibilities. Cargill’s existing palm plantation in Sumatra will now become part of CTP.

Plans to create the world's largest palm oil plantation along Indonesia's mountainous border with Malaysia could have a devastating impact on the forests, wildlife and indigenous people of Borneo, warns World Wildlife Fund.

The proposed scheme, funded by China and supported by the Indonesian government, is expected to cover an area of 4.4 million acres on the island of Borneo. Most of this mountainous region, part of the "Heart of Borneo," still holds huge tracts of forests supporting endangered species like orangutans and pygmy elephants, and 14 of the island's 20 major rivers originate there. According to WWF, new species have been discovered there at a rate of three per month over the last decade, making the area one of the richest on the globe for biodiversity.

Planet Ark : Biofuel to Drive Indonesian Palm Oil Expansion

JAKARTA - Indonesia's government plans to develop 3 million hectares of palm oil plantations in the next five years to meet increasing demand for biofuel as an alternative source of energy, the agriculture minister said on Wednesday.

• Indonesia: From oil palm plantations, with repression…

• Indonesia: Oil palm plantations encroaching on communities’ traditional land

• "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm"
  WRM's book on the impacts of oil palm plantations. August 2001.
• Oil Palm. From Cosmetics to Biodiesel - Colonization Lives On

Indonesian Forest Fact Sheet

The forests of Indonesia, along with the thousands of animals and plants that live there, are facing grave danger as they are destroyed at an alarming rate due to massive illegal logging and clearing for palm oil plantations. These tropical forests are of global importance, ranked second in terms of size to those of Brazil and covering over 406,000 square miles. The rapid deterioration of tropical forests is causing an incalculable loss in terms of biodiversity and is pushing species such as the orangutan ever closer to extinction.

Indonesia’s Forests Are Disappearing at an Alarming Rate

Indonesia’s forests represent 10% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforests and cover about 260 million acres. According to the European League, by 2001 Indonesia has lost 99 million acres of forest in the last 32 years, which is equivalent to the combined size of Germany and the Netherlands. The current rate of forest loss is about 6.2 million acres a year, but the rate is accelerating.

Plant and Animal Populations Are Also Decreasing Rapidly

Indonesia is one of the five most species-diverse countries in the world, home to 12% of all mammal species, 16% of all reptile and amphibian species, and 17% of all bird species. It also contains 33% of insect species, 24% of fungi species, and 10% of higher plant species. Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP), site of Camp Leakey, is home to more than 220 bird species, at least 17 reptile species, and 29 mammal species.

Poachers were killing proboscis monkeys along the river
en route to Camp Leakey until OFI began patrolling the area.
Behind Malaysia and the United States, Indonesia has the third highest number of threatened species with 772. It has the highest number of threatened mammal species, however, with 147 - an increase of seven species since the year 2000. According to a recent article in the conservation journal Oryx, 1000 orangutans are lost in Sumatra each year; in Borneo, the number is probably even higher.

Illegal Logging Largely to Blame for Forest Depletion

A study done in 2000 by the Indonesia-United Kingdom Tropical Forest Management Programme concluded that 73% of logging done in Indonesia was illegal. While Indonesia’s forest ministry official harvest figures are just under 882 million cubic feet per year, the combined log consumption capacity of plywood, sawn wood, and pulp and paper industries is 2.6 billion cubic feet per year, which means that industries obtain between one-half and two-thirds of their logs from illegal or unsustainable sources. Illegal logging produces 1.8 billion cubic feet of logs annually, resulting in state financial losses of approximately $3.37 billion. The value of timber stolen from TPNP alone is $8 million each year.

Illegal loggers working in the forest in Lamandau.

Increased Demand for Palm Oil Causes Conversion of Forests

Because of its versatility, world demand for palm oil has increased by 32% over the last five years with the advent of the rapidly expanding food and industrial manufacturing industries, growing at a rate of 7% each year. In fact, palm oil is the world’s best-selling vegetable oil, representing 40% of the total global trade in edible oils. Indonesia accounts for 31% of the world’s production of palm oil, and is expected to be responsible for 41% by 2005. The aim of the former Suharto government was to create a total of 13.5 million acres of palm oil plantations by 2000 - by 1999 the figure had reached 7.4 million, which is nearly five times the size of Bali. The sudden increase in palm oil use has led to the clearing of Indonesia's tropical forests to create monoculture palm oil plantations. Studies in Malaysia and Indonesia have shown that between 80 and 100% of the species of fauna inhabiting tropical rainforests cannot survive in oil palm monocultures (Wakker 2000). In 1999, nearly 800,000 acres of forest were converted for palm oil. Global demand is expected to increase by 50% in the next five years, primarily because palm oil profits are assured by cheap labor, low-priced land, a lack of effective environmental controls, easy availability of finance and support, and a short growth cycle.

Demand for Paper Production Increases, Leading to More Logging

As much as 40% of the wood used by Indonesian pulp producers between 1995 and 1999 came from illegal sources. Massive expansion in plywood, pulp, and paper production in the last two decades has brought demand for wood fiber to exceed the legal supply by 1.2-1.4 billion cubic feet per year. Pulp and paper subsectors have expanded by nearly 700% since 1987.

Timber and Plantation Companies Burn Forests to Clear Land

Approximately 22 million acres of land were damaged by the 1997 and 1998 fires in Indonesia largely caused by timber and palm oil plantation companies clearing land. According to Remote Sensing Solutions GMBH, the 0.80 to 2.57 billion tons of carbon released during that time was the biggest ever measured, corresponding to 13 to 40 percent of the annual global production by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. The estimated financial consequences of the fires were over $3 billion from losses in timber, agriculture, and non-timber products, plus the loss of hydrological and soil conservation services as well as biodiversity benefits. Haze from the fires cost an additional $1.4 billion for health treatment and lost tourism revenues.

Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) Works Towards Research, Conservation, and Education

OFI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of wild orangutans and their rainforest habitat. Founded by Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas and Dr. Gary Shapiro in 1986, OFI operates Camp Leakey, an orangutan research area within Tanjung Puting National Park. OFI also runs the Orangutan Care Center and Quarantine Facility in Pangkalan Bun, which is home to 200 displaced orphan orangutans, and co-manages the Lamandau Nature Reserve, where rehabilitated orangutans are being released into the wild. OFI partners with the Orangutan Conservation Forum, a consortium of groups that is working to counter the primary threats to orangutan survival throughout Indonesia. Through its field programs, OFI also provides employment for over 220 local Indonesians in the vicinity of Tanjung Puting National Park and the Lamandau Nature Reserve.

"Unless extreme action is taken soon," said Dr. Galdikas, "these forests could be gone within the next five to 10 years, and wild orangutans along with them."

See:

Cargill

Borneo

Orangutan

Apes


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Primate Man

A tip o the blog to Larry Gambone for
pointing out this interesting article from Foreign Affairs.

Robert M. SapolskyFrom Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006

More discomfiting is the continuum that has been demonstrated in the realm of cognition. We now know, for example, that other species invent tools and use them with dexterity and local cultural variation. Other primates display "semanticity" (the use of symbols to refer to objects and actions) in their communication in ways that would impress any linguist. And experiments have shown other primates to possess a "theory of mind," that is, the ability to recognize that different individuals can have different thoughts and knowledge.

Since tool making is part of the evolution of man as Engels correctly observed, then tool making in other species shows a movement towards social evolution as well. Unfortunately this knowledge that other species make toosl will also give the right wing another excuse to blame someone else for climate change.

Our purported uniqueness has been challenged most, however, with regard to our social life. Like the occasional human hermit, there are a few primates that are typically asocial (such as the orangutan).

So I guess that makes the orangutang an Objectivist. See my Ayn Rand 100

Apart from those, however, it turns out that one cannot understand a primate in isolation from its social group. Across the 150 or so species of primates, the larger the average social group, the larger the cortex relative to the rest of the brain. The fanciest part of the primate brain, in other words, seems to have been sculpted by evolution to enable us to gossip and groom, cooperate and cheat, and obsess about who is mating with whom. Humans, in short, are yet another primate with an intense and rich social life -- a fact that raises the question of whether primatology can teach us something about a rather important part of human sociality, war and peace.

And genetically we are closer to chimps than chumps contrary to the Creationist who believe swe were lumps of clay until god breathed life into us, 4,400 years ago. We are social beings as, anarchists have attested to all along, Kropotkin observed our societies thrive when they are based on mutual aid rather than mutually assured destruction.