RIAU — Half of the hotspots that are leaving Singapore and Malaysia shrouded in haze are in areas that should be protected by Indonesia’s moratorium on forest land, findings by environmental group Greenpeace showed yesterday.

The hotspots were detected between June 11 and 18. This shows how poorly forest protection measures are being enforced, Greenpeace South-east Asia’s Forest Campaigner Yuyun Indradi said yesterday.

But the group also said lack of updated data and transparency creates confusion over which forests are protected under the moratorium, extended for two years last month by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to prevent new clearing of primary forests and peatlands.

Published June 22, 2013

RIAU — Alongside the road from Riau province’s capital Pekanbaru to Dumai — the town close to many hotspots that have resulted in the haze over Singapore — were sweeping palm oil plantations and pipes for energy giant Chevron’s oil production operations.

Thick, choking haze reduced visibility to about 100 metres during parts of the six-hour journey yesterday, but residents were clearly getting on with their daily lives, with workers going about their business as usual.

Traffic was heavy as passenger vehicles and heavy trucks loaded with logs or crude palm oil shared the two-lane road. The trucks were seen loading and unloading their cargo at various processing facilities along the way.

Midway along the journey, in the town of Duri, we were drawn to a house adjacent to a patch of charred shrubs smaller than a football field. There, Madam Mirasanti was cutting a watermelon while her two daughters were watching television.

Published June 24, 2013

RIAU — Half an hour of rain fell near the Riau port city of Dumai early yesterday — the result of the previous evening’s cloud-seeding operation — as Indonesian forces continued water bombing and rain-making efforts.

Two helicopters flew over Mandau for a water bombing exercise yesterday morning and a Hercules plane loaded with salt was to take off at about 3pm from Pekanbaru’s Roesmin Nurjadin airport to seed clouds over Sungai Pakning in the Bengkalis regency.

The plane was supposed to take off at 1pm, but Colonel Andyawan, Commander of Pekanbaru Air Force base, said it was delayed due to lack of clouds over the targeted areas. He was upbeat when TODAY met him at the command centre at the airport, noting that the fires targeted were those affecting Singapore. Dumai is the city closest to many of these forest and plantation fires.

Published June 28, 2013

If you felt confused or none the wiser after reading reports on the names of several major palm oil and pulp companies thrown up as culprits of the haze, as well as their subsequent denials, you could hardly be blamed.

If the companies accused say they are not behind the fires, who is?

Full story: http://tdy.sg/hazefingerpointing
APRIL stresses no-burn policy
APRIL fire-fighters preventing a blaze from spreading into its areas from community land in Pekanbaru. Photo: Don Wong

Published July 3, 2013

RIAU — Fibre, pulp and paper giant Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) has come out strongly to affirm its no-burn policy and detail its fire-fighting efforts, worth millions of dollars annually, as it fends off charges of a significant proportion of Riau hot spots falling within concession areas linked to it.

Hosting a visit by TODAY to its Pangkalan Kerinci operation in Riau province last Saturday, company officials presented its fire management measures and showed, via a helicopter ride, that fires were occurring on community land just outside its concession areas.

Full story: http://tdy.sg/noburnpolicy
From illegal logger to sustainable farmer
Gallery: From illegal logger to sustainable farmer
Slide Show
7 Photos

Published July 13, 2013

JAMBI — He looks older than his 40 years, spouts a few phrases of Mandarin and wields a machete with finesse.

Life today on the cocoa, chilli and corn farm in Muaro Jambi regency in Sumatra’s Jambi province is a far cry from his days as an illegal logger, and that’s how Mr Tan Huzni (picture) prefers it.

After journeying through many parts of Indonesia, including West Kalimantan and Aceh, in his illegal logging days, Mr Tan Huzni found himself in Pematang Raman village in Muaro Jambi in 1995, working for a plantation company. He met and married a villager, Ms Arina, soon after and started farming in 2008.

Published July 13, 2013

JAMBI — The villagers of Pematang Raman in Sumatra’s Jambi province remember well the “dark days” — as a villager put it — of 1997. Hit by fires, thick smoke and barely-there visibility from July to October that year, daily activities such as farming ground to a halt and the people were in panic mode, going around to help other villagers trapped near the fires and taking whatever tools they could to the affected locations.

About 230 ha of a concession forest — an area allocated by the government to a timber or pulp company for commercial activities — 8km from Pematang Raman was burnt, according to village secretary Rodi Nurmansyah. The villagers do not know who was behind the largest fires in recent memory, but the episode was a trigger for change.