Nazir Foead, Head of Peatland Restoration Agency: 90 Percent of the Fires Was Intentional
After seeing a decline in severe incidents of forest and land clearing fires in the past three years, parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan are once again smothered by toxic smoke. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has chalked the thick smoke up to the near lack of rain and the massive expanse of peatland being on fire.
Tempo
September 23, 2019
FINGERS were immediately pointed at the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG), a non-structural agency set up by President Joko Widodo in 2015 in the wake of the devastating forest fire—the worst ecological disaster since 1997—which destroyed 2.67 million hectares of peatland and caused Rp221 trillion in losses. The agency was tasked to rewet the 2.5 million hectares parched peatlands in seven provinces across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papu
...