Jakarta (Greeners) – A senior official said that Indonesia’s repeated land and forestry was caused by the same reason, burning peatlands.
Tri Budiarto, Deputy for Emergency Response at National Mitigation Disaster Agency, said that zero-burning land management, if done seriously, can solve land and forest fires.
Furthermore, Budiarto criticized other land and forest fires prevention programs implemented by Ministry of Environment and Forestry underlining that the ministry shouldn’t be easy-to-please with non-measurable programs, such Fire Care People, retention basin development and canal blocking.
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“We are quickly to be complacent and claim the success of a program. Meanwhile, there are never any evaluations on those programs. Hence, every land and forest fires occur, again and again, we got busy. We all know the short memory loss character of our people, so, don’t be that in a few years later no one continue the programs and when needed they’re not working anymore,” he said in Jakarta, on Friday (10/6).
Discontinued budget presented problems in land and forest fires, he added, though ministry can allocated mandatory budget that can be used when needed.
Furthermore, he underlined cultural approach followed by jurisdiction approach to meet social aspect.
“If you want the people to really protect the nature then government must provide good example. Socialize the implementation and real protection program, no more anecdotes,” he added.
READ ALSO: Global Peatland Initiatives Leads World’s Peats Restoration
Meanwhile, Raffles Brotestes Panjaitan, director of land and forest fires prevention at the ministry, said that government omission has been long overdue and there was no solution. Though, he added this omission can be the key to tackle land and forest fires in the country.
Furthermore, he said that all policy makers, in central and regional, including corporate and people need to be integrated and prioritize the issue.
“Omission also happen in grass root but when we ask to few villages with disaster awareness and fire care communities, there are hotspots have yet to be detected,” he said. “Based on our data, 783 villages prone to land and forest fires meanwhile Ministry of Village presents different numbers. This is difficult so all [institutions] must be integrated to tackle the issue.”
Reports by Danny Kosasih
21 Apr 2024 
