Indonesia braces for El Niño fallout

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said she had proposed to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo two alternative methods to put out forest fires that would involve a limited amount of water.

“We reported to the President [...] that we will test [a method using] a chemical as an oxygen absorber,” Siti told a press conference after the limited Cabinet meeting to discuss the weather phenomenon at the Presidential Office on Friday. “Another option is we will use a jelly pack, which will also be tested first at the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park [in East Java],” said Siti, who was joined by Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Indroyono Soesilo and BMKG head Adi Eka Sakya in the Cabinet meeting.

Siti said that the government also mulled the plan to use an air tractor in water bombing the forest fires.

During the meeting, the President also ordered relevant government institutions to swiftly take action to put out fires in a number of hot spots before they cause major forest fires.

Indroyono said that the government was optimistic that it could mitigate the effects from El Niño and its long dry spell as the country had faced the weather phenomenon before.

According to Indroyono, efforts that had been taken to anticipate the El Niño included the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry distributing 761 groundwater pumps.

When needed, the ministry would also be ready to distribute clean water, Indroyono said.

The ministry has also run checks on main dams and reservoirs and found that most were in normal condition and only five were experiencing a water deficit.

“The Agriculture Ministry has also asked governors, regents and mayors to use around Rp 2 trillion [US$148 million] from the special allocation fund in the 2015 state budget to build small dams, and has prepared 20,000 water pumps and [will build] shallow wells,” Indroyono told a press briefing after the limited Cabinet meeting.

The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) has also been enlisted to help with the El Niño mitigation effort.

Bulog is now working to ensure it will be able to acquire 2.5 million tons of rice in October, following a report from the Agriculture Minister that around 220,000 hectares from a total of 8.1 million ha of rice fields across the country will be affected by the weather phenomenon.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) was also ready to help with efforts in putting out forest fires.

In his opening speech to the meeting, Jokowi said the most important thing was to seek efforts “to save farmers [and] fishermen, as well as to jointly prevent forest fires resulting from El Niño”.

Experts however have predicted that El Niño could bring plenty of fish to waters along Sumatra’s west coast, as well as to waters to the south of Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry could prepare cold storage to deal with excess fish supplies.

The government also planned to enforce laws against those burning bushes and forests.

“We will also start to enforce the law [by prosecuting those who are involved in burning the forest],” Siti said.

According Siti, two cases from 2012 have been processed by the courts, six cases from 2013 are still under ongoing investigation by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and nine companies allegedly involved in last year’s forest burning cases are still being investigated.

 

 

Drought

Water crisis, harvest failure hits most of country

Ni Komang Erviani, Jon Afrizal and Ganug Nugroho Adi

The Jakarta Post/Denpasar/Jambi/Surakarta

Farmers in Bali, Sumatra and Java have been struggling over the past few months to provide sufficient water for their crop fields, with almost all of Indonesia’s main islands hit by prolonged drought.

In Bali, a popular resort island for domestic and international tourists, a total of 350 hectares of rice fields have been hit by drought following a long absence of rain across the island, according to the province’s Agriculture Agency head, Ida Bagus Wisnuardhana.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Friday, Wisnuardhana said the affected rice fields had been found in four regencies, namely Jembrana, Tabanan, Buleleng and Badung. In an attempt to prevent harvest failure, he said, the agency had distributed 200 water pumps to farmers groups to help them channel water to their dried-up rice fields.

“The rice fields have been suffering moderate impacts of drought. The fields, however, have yet to experience harvest failure. We can still help them recover,” he said.

Drought, he added, had plagued some rice fields since June, and could last until September.

“We hope that the dry season will end sooner than expected, as some parts of Bali have had rain in the last few days,” he added.

Meanwhile in Jambi, the Bungo regional administration reported on Friday that a total of 1,058 ha of productive rice fields in the regency had been hit by drought.

“It has been confirmed that some 548 ha of the parched farmland have experienced crop failure,” said the regency’s Agriculture, Food Crops and Horticultural Agency head, Khairul Saleh.

Among the worst-hit regions, according to Khairul, are Tanah Sepenggal and Tanah Sepenggal Lintas districts.

“Ironically, the affected paddy fields in the districts there have just been designated as model crop fields,” he said.

Many regions in the country have been struggling with water crises caused by months without rain, a result of the El Niño weather phenomenon, which affects temperature and rainfall.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) predicted on Thursday that the intensity of El Niño could strengthen in the next four months, giving rise to an extended dry season.

Separately, Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo said on Friday that the provincial administration would allocate more than Rp 20 billion (US$1.5 million) to curb 

the worsening water crisis in the province.

According to Ganjar, the drought has so far hit some 10 percent of the 7,804 villages across Central Java.

“The administration has earmarked Rp 20 billion to provide, among other things, clean water assistance, which will be delivered by the Central Java Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD),” he said.