Indonesia to bring forest fire prevention agenda in COP21 Paris

Indonesian delegation will bring the agenda about the importance of preventing forest fire and efforts to rehabilitate and recover forest and peatland areas in the upcoming global climate change summit of Conference of the Parties (COP) scheduled in Paris next week, a minister said here on Friday.

"The most important thing is to take serious efforts to prevent forest fire from occurring again, particularly the one that incited by people," Indonesia's Development Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil said in his office here.

According to the minister, Indonesian government thinks better of forest fire issue seriously. He said that government would speed up activities to rehabilitate the forest and peatland areas affected by the recent massive forest fire in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The forest fire that gutted 1.7 million hectares of forest and peatland areas in six provinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan was entirely extinguished early this month as rain started to fall in the affected areas.

An international operation led by Indonesia was conducted to douse fire in the forests with tons of water poured down by water bombing aircrafts provided by Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Russia.

The recent massive forest fire made at least 300,000 people suffered from respiratory problems, killed dozens of people, suspended activities in schools and disrupted the flights in the affected areas. The haze produced from the forest fire went through neighboring countries of Singapore and Malaysia.

Besides the forest fire prevention agenda, Indonesia would also bring the national document, dubbed as "Intended Nationality Determined Contribution" (INDC) that contains Indonesia's action plans to reduce emission by 29 percent by 2030.

The minister said that Indonesia would focus its efforts to address the emission reduction target by reducing the emissions in transportation, energy, wastes and garbage sectors. Endit