Roundup: Indonesia steps up measures to fight El Nino, forest fires

Indonesia is stepping up measures aimed at countering the possible impacts of El Nino and forest fires in the country, an official at the country's disaster mitigation agency said here on Tuesday.

This year Indonesia may see more severe impacts from the El Nino that could lead to famine in parts of the country. A senior official at Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said that the El Nino would extend the country's dry season up to November this year, from October in 2014.

BNPB Spokesperson Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a press conference held in his office here on Tuesday that the impacts of the El Nino have been felt in 12 provinces, and part of these provinces have not seen rainfall in the last two months.

Among the provinces severely affected by the El Nino were Central Java, West Java, East Java, Bali, Banten, Yogyakarta, Papua, West and East Nusa Tenggara, Sutopo said.

He said that BNPB has allocated some 75 billion rupiah (about 5. 5 million U.S. dollars) to finance short-term measures, including deploying water tanks and drilling wells, in the affected areas, compared with last year's 50 billion rupiah (about 3.7 million U.S. dollars).

A long-term plan has been set by the central government to construct 49 dams across the country during the term of the present government. Those dams would support the irrigation system in rural areas and generate power.

Sutopo added that the BNPB has also come up with measures to prevent forest fires that occurred in past years in plantation areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The fires cause haze that ran through neighboring countries of Singapore, Malaysia and part of Thailand.

He said that 99.9 percent of forest fires occurred in the past years were set intentionally in Indonesia. People were paid by certain groups hired by plantation owners to turn forests into plantations, who decided that burning the forests was less expensive than removing them with excavators.

Sutopo expected that forest fires would be decreasing this year as the government has carried out stern legal measures against related firms since last year.

The BNPB has deployed dozens of fire-extinguisher helicopters in areas prone from forest fires in Sumatra and planned to make artificial rains to help the fire extinguishing efforts.

"We have allocated some 385 billion rupiah (about 28 million U. S. dollars) to finance the fire extinguishing operation until September this year," Sutopo said.

Citing satellite images, Sutopo said that as of Tuesday the hotspots detected in Riau province that saw most forest fires in the past years have reduced to 148 from more than 300 in the last few days. Endi