The government, learning from the negligence that led to last year’s widespread land and forest fires which is considered one of the century’s greatest environmental catastrophes, is developing a new system of fire prevention.

Last Friday, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) detected 59 hotspots in Sumatra, including 45 hotspots in Riau; with the dry season approaching, concerns are mounting over a repeat of last year’s debilitating fires and haze.

“Under the current mitigation system, when a fire is detected, it is extinguished. This leads to fluctuations in the number of hotspots. But we can’t keep chasing fires like that. As such, we plan to develop a system within the next two to three weeks to make the government more active and able to prevent forest fires,” Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said on Friday.

The new system is to be developed in conjunction with the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Ministry, the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister and the World Bank, and will engage regional governments and local communities in preventing forest fires. The system is expected to ensure every decision regarding forest fire prevention made by regional governments is followed at all levels down to village level.

In practice, the government will also utilize its social assets in the form of community engagement to prevent forest fires.

BNPB head Willem Rampangilei said recently that the government would train local residents to prevent land and forest fires, as they were more able to respond quickly to flare-ups. To date, Willem said, local people had not been involved in fire-prevention efforts, and were indeed often blamed for setting fires.

Siti said the government was optimistic the initiative to engage local communities would succeed, as she had noticed increasing public involvement in regions prone to forest fires.

“We already have good capital. I noticed in South Sumatra there was very lively [public involvement]. Whenever a hot spot emerges, local people move instantly [to put out the fire],” she said.

The mitigation system will be coupled with a monitoring system currently being prepared by the government, Siti added.

Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) head Nazir Foead said on Thursday the agency was working together with Hokkaido University and Kyoto University in Japan to develop an early warning system for detecting fires in peatland. The early warning system would, Nazir said, complement that of the BNPB.

“While the BNPB system monitors what happens above ground, we will monitor what happens below the ground, such as the depth of water in peatland,” Nazir said.

He said the system, dubbed SESAME, was being tested by Japan and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) in Central Kalimantan.

“BRG research and development deputy Haris Gunawan is currently meeting with a number of academics in Japan to discuss the possibility of adopting the system not only in Central Kalimantan but also in other places,” said Nazir.

The BRG is also looking at the possibility of moving the system server from Japan to Indonesia, he added.

“Japan is prepared to have the server located in Indonesia. We just have to decide whether the system is managed by the BPPT, the BNPB, the Environment and Forestry Ministry or us. We think the BPPT is the most appropriate government agency [to manage the system] because the BRG has a lifespan of only five years,” Nazir said.

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