Indonesian president pledges to seriously tackle forest fires

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pledged a decisive commitment to tackle the devastating forest fire problem in Sumatra, planning to strengthen legal basis to protect the forest and peatland areas.

The president made the remarks on Thursday while joining local community in damming a canal in Sungai Tohor village located in Riau province to stop the drainage of a peat forest.

The president hailed such an initiative, saying, "The best for peatland is to give it to the community so as to be managed for sago. Community management is usually environmentally-friendly. If it is given to companies, it would be turned into monocultures like acacia and oil palm."

The president said he would strengthen the legal basis to protect the peatlands, adding that he has instructed related ministers to do so.

"Peatlands cannot be underestimated, they must be protected because they constitute a special ecosystem, and it's not only deep peat that must be protected, but all peat areas," the president said.

At different occasions while he visited Riau province, the president vowed that his administration would intensify review on the operation of plantation firms. He added that he had ordered the forestry ministry to directly check the situations on the ground.

"If they are proved of committed in destructing, disrupting the ecosystem due to their monoculture plantations, they would be terminated. It must be stopped, we must not allow our tropical rainforest disappear due to monoculture plantations like oil palm, " Widodo added.

Prior to the visit in Sungai Tohor village, the president visited Padang island where he inspected evidence of recent clearing and draining by Asia Pacific Reasources International Limited (APRIL), a major pulp firm still involved in active forest and peatland destruction in Indonesia.

This destruction is the root cause of the massive fires that plague the region every year, according to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace Indonesia Country Director Longgena Ginting expected that the statement of President Widodo would be a sign of Indonesia's more committed efforts in protecting forest and peat land.

"The country's existing peatland regulations are weak and poorly enforced. We look forward for Jokowi to take firm action to stop industry's expansion into peatland, crackdown illegalities and support permanent protection of peatland landscapes," Longgena said in a statement.

Indonesia has been seeing major forest fires annually whose haze has disrupted health of people around the forest, and domestic flights. The haze also went to neighbouring countries -- Singapore and Malaysia that made the regional bloc of ASEAN to establish a particular task force to address the issue.