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Indonesia Haze Grounds Regional Flights. |
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Monday, 18 June 2007 22:22 |
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Article from the Bangkok Post website.
Jakarta (dpa) - Smoke from illegal land-clearing fires has shrouded West Kalimantan province on Indonesian part of Borneo, delaying flights from and into the region, the state-run news agency reported Sunday.
Syamsul Bachri, head of provincial airport in Pontianak, said visibility was limited to a range of 600 metres during the mornings of recent days.
"Three commercial flights serving Pontianak-Jakarta had been delayed this morning due to limited visibility," Antara news agency quoted Bachri saying Sunday. "For a precaution measure we have to delay all morning flights."
Haze from illegal land-clearing early this month also shrouded the eastern part of Sumatra island, the first appearance this year of dry-season haze that regularly covers much of the country and drifts across the region.
Indonesia has the third-most forest cover of any tropical country, but between 2000 and 2005 lost around 1.8 million hectares of forest due to logging, agriculture and forest fires, according to the environmental group Greenpeace.
Indonesia has lost 72 percent of its old-growth forests and half of what remains is threatened by logging, forest fires and clearing for palm-oil plantations, the group said.
A report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's development arm released in June said Indonesia was among the world's top three greenhouse-gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires.
At a meeting of Southeast Asian environment ministers on Sumatra last month, Indonesia pledged to reduce the number of forest fires by half, at a cost of 77.5 million dollars this year alone.
Indonesia has outlawed land-clearing by fire but weak law enforcement has allowed the activity to continue. Last year President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono apologized to both Malaysia and Singapore for the effects on neighbouring nations.
Each year, uncontrolled slash-and-burning practices by farmers, plantation owners and loggers on Sumatra and Borneo sends haze across the region, causing health problems and millions of dollars of losses from falling tourism revenue and flight disruptions.
The annual haze phenomenon is at its worst during the dry season, which runs from July through October.
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