T

he government has promised a swifter responses to annual forest fires, including declaring a state of emergency sooner.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said on Monday that the government would be able to keep this year'€™s forest fires under control as it had learned from past experiences.

'€œWhen there'€™s a problem, we declare a state of emergency immediately. We already have a policy [to announce a state of emergency],'€ he told The Jakarta Post.

By declaring a state of emergency, the government could immediately disburse funding and other resources to manage forest fires, Luhut said.

He added that the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Ministry would be coordinating the attempts to manage this year'€™s forest fires, as stipulated by a presidential decree on forest fires.

The retired army general said that one of the main reasons why last year'€™s forest fires escalated so rapidly and razed up to 2.6 million hectares of land was because of the government'€™s slow response.

'€œTo be honest with you, we declared a state of emergency very late. We had very little understanding of the peatland situation at that time,'€ Luhut said.

He said the government would not repeat the same mistakes this year as the number of hotspots had increased recently in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

'€œThis year, some areas have already been impacted by El Niño,'€ Luhut said. '€œNow, we are making preparations as early as possible.'€

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) detected 151 hotspots on Sunday, with 76 hot spots in East Kalimantan and 45 hot spots in Riau. There were also 11 hot spots in Aceh, seven in North Kalimantan and two each in Central Sulawesi, Gorontalo and South Sulawesi.

'€œActually there have been forest fires in Riau and East Kalimantan for the past three weeks with a fluctuating number of hot spots. The number of hotspots in East Kalimantan is the highest compared to other regions in Indonesia. This is an anomaly because in the past, there were relatively less forest fires in East Kalimantan than in other regions,'€ BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said on Sunday.

He said that forest fires started to reappear this year as some regions were suffering from dry weather.

'€œRiau is entering this year'€™s first dry season from now until April. But the current dry season is not as dry as the upcoming second dry season from July until September,'€ Sutopo said.

Besides Riau, other regions, such as the eastern coast of North Sumatra, have been affected by the dry season this year.

'€œOther regions that we need to pay more attention to are the eastern part of Riau, eastern part of North Sumatra and central part of South Sulawesi,'€ Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency'€™s (BMKG) head Andi Eka Sakya said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, the dry season will start in other regions in May, affecting 65.8 percent of Indonesia, and end in late October, he added.

Besides promising a swifter response to forest fires, Luhut said that the government had prepared other measures, including utilizing village funds.

'€œAt the same time, we have a program relating to how to use the village funds to prevent forest fires. The village fund is important to reduce the gap between the haves and have nots,'€ he said. '€œIn 2016, we have transferred 36.7 percent of this year'€™s village funds. This money can be utilized by forest fire-free village programs.'€

Luhut added that the funding allocation would increase from year to year, with this year'€™s allocation increasing by up to US$100,000 per village from $60,000 per village last year.
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