Burning in Indonesia may bring in transboundary haze
SIBU: The number of hotspots in Sumatra, Indonesia increased yesterday while Kalimantan r e c orded fewer hot spot s , said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Dato Sri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
“Under these unpredictable circumstances, it is clear that fires are burning in Indonesia but substantially less than what we saw in 2015.
“But (it is) still too early to tell as now it is only August. Last year, it began in August (and) peaked in September and early October,” he told The Borneo Post when contacted yesterday.
The Santubong MP was asked if Sarawak could possibly experience haze should the wind direction changed in the next few days following detection of the isolated hotspots.
According to the information derived from the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC) on Aug 14, there was presence of the monsoon rain band lying north of the Equator bringing rainfall over most parts of the northern Asean region.
Isolated hotspots were detected in Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia. The prevailing winds in the region are expected to blow mainly from the southeast or southwest over the next few days, it stated.
Under these unpredictable circumstances, it is clear that fires are burning in Indonesia but substantially less than what we saw in 2015. Dato Sri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, Natural Resources and Environment Minister
Wan Junaidi said: “Obviously, the (number of) hotspots changes by the day, (and) while on Sunday there was none in the Peninsula, now there are several hotspots in Peninsula today ( yesterday) and none in Sarawak. Yesterday ( Sunday) , there were six in Sarawak.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Environment’s hourly Air Pollutant Index (API) reading as at 5pm yesterday, noted most parts of Sarawak were having good air quality, while certain parts of Peninsula experienced moderate air quality.
The API guide from DOE indicated reading from 0 - 50 ( healthy); 51-100 (moderate); 101200 ( unhealthy); 201- 300 (very unhealthy) and 301 and above ( hazardous).
Recent ly, Indonesia had given assurance that the transboundary haze would not be as serious as last year with drastic action taken to combat forest fires in the country.
Bernama quoted S enior Adviser on Energy to Minister of Environment and Forestry of Indonesia Arief Yuwono as saying that Jakarta had a strong commitment to prevent forest fires from the presidential level to the ground level.
He was quoted as telling the media this after attending the 12th Meeting of the Conference of The Parties To The Asean Agreement on Trans- boundary Haze Pollution (COP-12) in Kuala Lumpur recently, adding that they had a lot of initiatives at the moment and even had presidential directive which their minister had translated into action on the ground.