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MoE: Eight Provinces Prepared To Prevent El Nino

El Nino, the temperatures rise phenomenon in Pacific Ocean, estimated approached Indonesia by the middle of this year. BMKG predicts, El Nino will hit between July and September with a chance of weak to medium intensity, but the chance of high intensity also possible.

Haris Gunawan, Disaster Study Centre of Riau University mentioned that more than 70% of fires that happened in early 2014 occurred outside the forest area causes total losses of funds estimated at 15 trillion dollars, or equivalent of twice the Riau provincial budget.

“We have to see the fire from the root of the problem and law enforcement is part of a comprehensive solution. We had an error in processing peat, ” he said. He said that if the processing management of peatland must be dried first, then the water management will become uncontrollable and become very susceptible to burn.

He requested that Riau case should be a lesson to manage peatland in various other areas. If in the middle of this year El Nino is coming, very likely hotspots will extend even up to 26% of the remaining forests in Riau.

Meanwhile, Arief Yuwono Deputy III of Environmental Damage and Climate Change Countermeasure, Ministry of Environment (MoE), when being interviewed by Ekuatorial in Jakarta (5/21) said currently MoE has made some effort to prevent and reduce the impact that will occur because of El Nino.

“MOE is currently focusing on prevention of the impact of El Nino that is expected to occur next month,” said Arief. He added that El Nino is closely associated with the land fire and depletion of water resources, so prevention such as water management required.

Arief explains, MOE already conduct briefing to increase local people’s awareness and knowledge in eight provinces through community fire care programs. In this program, knowledge and examples of strategic measures to the community for responsive to fires that occur was given.

“For community fire care program, a pilot project has been established in Bengkalis Riau and Kubu Raya Kalimantan who has bad history against land fire happened repeatedly,” he explains.

The eight provinces that became the focus of prevention effects of El Nino by MOE, among others, North Sumatera, Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. Arief explains the election of that eight provinces based on the potential damage which higher due to El Nino compared with 26 other provinces.

Besides society, Arief also mentions MoE also targeting local government to partake in minimize the impact of El Nino. At local government level, MoE tries to strengthen the information systems, so that local governments can do ideal step to land degradation prevention.

“We believe with the fire prevention anticipation in eight provinces, actually, it would be very effective to reduce the land fire that will happen as a result of the drought plus El Nino,” said Arief. Januar Hakam & Azhari Fauzi.

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