THE day had just begun when the cellular phones of Forestry Minister M.S. Kabans staffers started to ring. Foreign correspondents based in Malaysia were calling to inquire about forest fires in Indonesia, the smoke from which was then descending on cities in the neighboring country.

Kaban acknowledged forest fires were raging in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Last month more than 1,000 hotspots were detected in Sumatra, a third of them in the province of