A smog outbreak in Southeast Asia last year may have caused over 100,000 premature deaths, according to a new study released Monday that triggered calls for action to tackle the “killer haze”.
Researchers from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US estimated there were more than 90,000 early deaths in Indonesia in areas closest to haze-belching fires, and several thousand more in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has projected that this month will be the peak of dry season, thus increasing bush fire potentials. "The humidity has caused forest and peatland to be easily combusted," said BNPB spokesperson, Sutopo.
NASA's MODIS satellite has detected 260 hotspots in Indonesia using Terra Aqua sensors.
Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post, Pekanbaru
A government team from the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) that recently made an impromptu visit to check on alleged peatland conversion by PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) was denied entry to the site by security guards.
BRG head Nazir Foead, accompanied by BRG official Haris Gunawan, forest rangers, Forestry and Environment Ministry officials and villagers, said RAPP guards at the plantation in Meranti Islands regency asked to see a permit letter.
source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/09/07/rapp-accused-of-peatland-conversion.html
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - It has been a busy fortnight for Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar for no other reason than the seasonal emergence of forest fires. This year, the ministry has had to deal with an even more problematic agenda. Two incidents occurred that complicated an already sensitive situation: the hostage-taking of environmental ministry officials as they investigated a burned site owned by Andika Permata Sawit Lestari (APSL) at Rokan Hulu, and the discovery of a peatland area suspected to be newly cleared by Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (RAPP) on Pulau Padang at Merbau Subdistrict, Meranti Regency.
At the same time, Nurbaya, 60, was censured by President Joko Widodo who was in China attending the G20 summit: She had to immediately settle the problem of the forest fires. At the time, smoke had already begun to cover Riau and creep across the Malacca Strait to Singapore. Ministry officials were taken hostage when they were in the process of putting up signs banning further use of the scorched forested areas within the APSL area. They were surrounded by a crowd who threatened to kill them. The people forced the officials to erase all photographs and video recordings and uproot the signs placed by the environment and forestry ministry. The hostages were only released at 2:30am the following day, following negotiations by the police. Luckily, the recordings of the scorched lands, taken by an overhead drone, escaped destruction.
Jakarta. Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar has condemned the hostage situation in Rokan Hulu district, Riau province, which saw employees of her ministry abducted by local residents during an investigation of last year's forest fires.
Seven members of the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry's public order and law enforcement directorate were taken hostage on Friday (02/09) by a group of local residents, allegedly deployed by palm oil plantation company Andika Permata Sawit Lestari (APSL).
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