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Info Sheet #ClimateJustice

Updates on the Land/Forest Fires and Haze in Indonesia Prepared by WALHI – Friends of the Earth Indonesia October 2015

Background

Fires have been raging over the forest and peatlands in Kalimantan and Sumatra for almost 3 months, and already spread to other parts of Indonesia like Sulawesi, Halmahera island in Moluccas, and parts of Papua.

The catastrophe in Kalimantan and Sumatera has caused the hazardous air quality in many areas, in the villages and in the cities. Data released by Indonesian Agency for Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics (BMKG) showed that the particulate matter (PM10) in the city of Palangkaraya (Central Kalimantan) has reached to 3,700 as of October 21, 2015. It is more than 10 times the normal level. In the past 3 months, the haze has harmed 25 million people in five provinces in Indonesia. This has led to the deaths of 15 people per October 22, 2015, dominated by children.

Currently, WALHI is trying to help the evacuation of the vulnerable groups, such as babies/infants, breast-feeding mothers, pregnant women, the elderly and other vulnerable groups) who have been exposed by the smoke to a better place.

For the time being, WALHI has already prepared some safe houses in several places in Banjarbaru and Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan) for evacuation of people from Central Kalimantan, and also coordinating effort for available safe houses in West Sumatera, for evacuation of people from the nearby provinces –like Riau.

Within the provinces affected by the smokehaze, WALHI’s regional offices in the above also prepare safe houses that will be equipped with air purifier facilities.

What WALHI has done so far Emergency Efforts

For the past months since the fires started, WALHI has been conducted efforts in order to firstly ease the suffering of the people, especially the children, pregnant women, the elderly by giving masks and also opening up health posts in 5 provinces in Indonesia, which are in Riau, Jambi and South Sumatera, and in Central and West Kalimantan.

Doc.WALHI Jambi

Public Awareness and Popular Campaign

Doc. WALHI Central Kalimantan

WALHI both at the regions and national level has conducted campaigns and creative actions in order to raise awareness and solidarity of citizen towards the survivors of the catastrophes. The awareness campaign is also aimed to educate common people that the fires/haze is not a “natural disaster”, and neither a given situation. We expose the companies involved and demand the government to conduct action as representation of the interests of the people.

Law Enforcement and Policy Push

Besides those emergency efforts, WALHI has also been trying to push the government to act on more structural and systematic way, such as blocking the canals that have been bulit by companies to dryout the peatlands --in order to rewetting the peatlands and putting off fires, conducting law enforcements, and reviewing all permits that have been given by the corporations. We pushed the government, especially to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) to announce the names of companies that involved in the fires and haze problems.

WALHI itself, both at the national office and at the 5 WALHI’s regional offices in Sumatera and Kalimantan mentioned above, has been conducting investigations and ground-checkings of companies that involved in the fires, and triggering the smoke and haze problems in Indonesia. When overlaid with concession maps of the companies, and also tracking the names of companies that have been announced by the MOEF, we found out that at least 10 group of companies involved in triggering the catastrophe.

Those groups are: Wilmar, Sinar Mas (Asian Pulp and Paper), Raja Garuda Mas/APRIL, Sime Darby, First Resources, Sampoerna, Cargill, PTPN (state-owned plantation company), Provident, and Marubeni (Pulp and Paper). There might be more groups involved but we can not identify them yet due to the limitation of data available.

Below is the graphic that shows number of companies that have affiliations with each of the above groups in five provinces that experience the worst haze/smoke problems, as of Sept 28, 2015.

Doc. Public figures and WALHI demonstration #MelawanAsap in Jakarta

Several press conferences and many media interviews are conducted by WALHI at the national and regional offices in order to expose the corporates crimes.

It also includes the call to government to demand liability from companies for the loss that has been suffered by the state and the people through civil lawsuit.

Doc. Abetnego Form WALHI Live in Berita Satu

Besides the policy push to the government to act towards companies, we also organize the citizen to file class action lawsuits towards the companies that creating the loss, and citizen lawsuits towards the government who have acted slow and neglecting the rights of the citizen of the clean and healthy environment as guaranteed by the constitution. The lawsuits will be filed in the 5 provinces (Riau, Jambi, South Sumatera, Central Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan).

Lobbying Efforts

To accelerate the process of the government actions on law enforcement and for the larger policy push, WALHI also conducted meetings with the Chief of the National Police, and also with the Attorney General to put a special attention to the process of the law enforcements, especially in the regions.

WALHI also has involved in the team that is set up by the President’s Chief of Staff to prepare a Presidential Instruction (INPRES) on the Acceleration of the Actions on Forest and Land Fires. The INPRES will soon be issued by the president.

WALHI and several other environmental NGOs are invited by the President himself to give inouts and views regarding the handling of the impacts of the fires and other mitigation efforts, before he held a meeting with his miniters to give orders to act.

Regional contacts

Should you need more detail information regarding the regional situation, you may contact: • Riko Kurniawan, WALHI Riau Director, rikokurniawan@gmail.com • Musri Nauli, WALHI Jambi Director, nauli. jambi@gmail.com • Hadi Jatmiko, WALHI South Sumatera Director, adi.jatmiko.ss@gmail.com • Arie Rompas, WALHI Central Kalimantan Director, arie.rompas@gmail.com • Anton Wijaya, WALHI West Kalimantan Director, walhikalbar1@gmail.com

Doc. WALHI