February 23, 1998 Drought in Borneo Feeds Fear of New Asian Fires By SETH MYDANS SAMARINDA, Indonesia -- The eastern coast of Borneo, dry after a year of drought, is bursting into flame again, raising fears that a wave of choking smoke could soon blanket Southeast Asia as it did last fall. Desperate to survive as food shortages and bankruptcies spread in Indonesia, both small farmers and large plantation owners have apparently resumed their slash-and-burn land clearing, despite a government ban on burning and in defiance of pleas by neighboring countries. The fires and the continuing drought -- which has been broken in much of the country by only sporadic rain showers -- are bringing added misery to a nation that is suffering its worst economic and political crisis in decades. The drought has ruined crops and added to the unemployment and food shortages that are causing price riots around the country in a social parallel to last year's wildfires. >From hilltops here in East Kalimantan province, plumes of smoke can be seen in every direction. As the wind shifts unpredictably, flames eat their way through the forests, driving birds and animals ahead of them. Farmers with machetes rush to cut fire breaks. Clouds of sweet smoke sting the eyes and bring an early dusk to villages. "I was up all night fighting a fire near my home," said Badui, a farmer who sweated as he hacked underbrush at the edges of a crackling fire a few miles north of Samarinda. "Now I'm helping my friend save his home. It was the same thing last year." At a tracking station here, brightly colored computerized satellite images show hundreds of shifting hot spots. Most are clustered here in the country's driest province. But recently two new clusters have appeared in northeastern Sumatra, the other Indonesian island that was a source of last year's regionwide haze. "If the meteorology predictions are right, the dry season may be longer than last year," said Longgena Ginting, coordinator of forestry advocacy at Walhi, an environmental lobbying group. "If that happens, I am quite sure the fires will be worse than they were last year. It really depends on the weather." Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines have already voiced their concern. Malaysia is particularly worried about the possibility that smoke could ruin its plans to play host to the Commonwealth Games in September. Last fall, Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, was thick with smoke from the Indonesian fires and children sat at their school desks wearing surgical masks. The smog affected six Southeast Asian nations, forcing the closing of airports, contributing to ship collisions, and cutting deeply into the tourism industry. It also caused widespread health problems and led to the evacuation of many foreign diplomats and businessmen. The root cause of the problem has not changed, Longgena said. "In Kalimantan, the fires are mostly caused by plantations and timber estates that have started to clear land again." The cheap clearing of land by burning will be harder than ever to stop given the economic hardships that make it less likely that plantation owners will shift to more expensive mechanized methods, several experts said. In addition, said Charles Barber, a senior researcher for the World Resources Institute: "The government has no money now to do enforcement or oversight. This is a problem in all areas of environmental management. It's a very unfortunate confluence of events: the drought, a boom in land clearing, which never had very good oversight, and now less money to focus on what goes on out in the field. "And combine that with a large amount of dead and dry biomass, which is lying around from incompletely burned areas from 1997 and you could have some real rough fires. It could be worse in May than it was even last September." Ludwig Schindler, who monitors fires in Samarinda for the Department of Forestry, said virtually all fires in Indonesia are started by people. Dry lightning, the leading cause of fires in the western United States, is not part of the weather system here, he said. Government development programs, corruption and weak law enforcement are at the root of the problem, Schindler said. "Those companies, they are protected, many of them, because they have good relations, or they are owned by people who own the country," he said. "And so that is why we have the saying that law enforcement in Indonesia is quite slow and weak." Indonesia has set a target for early in the next decade to become the world's leading exporter of wood pulp. "There is an enormous program to convert forest into timber plantations as well as oil-palm and rubber-tree plantations," Schindler said. "These companies have targets to fulfill," he added. "For two or three years it was very wet and they fell behind. Last year was very dry and everyone tried to catch up and burn what they could burn, and this is what caused the haze." For the people of eastern Borneo, fire has become a familiar neighbor. The calls go out through the villages as flames approach, signaling their arrival with a roar of crackling and popping as they devour trees and bushes, fruits, berries and the nests of animals. Hot, swirling currents of wind cause trees to sway and knock in their path as men hurry to cut firebreaks, calling from deep in the forest for water. They beat at the approaching flames with huge rubber mops and shield their faces from the heat with clusters of leaves. As smoke billows across the roads, drivers turn on their car headlights and slow to a crawl. Small barefoot boys stand watching until the asphalt becomes too hot for them and they flee. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
