A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, July 27, 2017
Indonesia: Forest fire threat to escalate as dry season looms – agency
An Aceh Barat goverment official gives mask to motorcyclists as haze
from peatland fires hits the city in Meulaboh, Indonesia July 24, 2017
in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Source: Reuters
INDONESIA’S disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) has warned of an
escalating threat of forest fires with the dry season expected to peak
in coming months, while hot spots detected in the province of Aceh have
already been causing choking smoke.
Fires had spread to around 64 hectares (158 acres) of fields and forests
in Aceh, a northern province on the island of Sumatra, producing haze
and some residents had been taken to hospital due to breathing problem,
the agency said on Tuesday.
“The peak of the dry season is predicted to be in August and September,
so the threat of forest and field fires, and drought will escalate,”
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for BNPB said in a statement.
The fires in Aceh started on Tuesday last week and authorities are still trying to extinguish them in some areas.
Meanwhile, a satellite image showed 170 hot spots across Indonesia as of Monday evening, Nugroho said.
Indonesia is regularly hit by forest fires, which can result in choking
smoke blowing across to neighbouring countries like Singapore and
Malaysia.
Indonesia suffered some its worst forest fires in 2015, hitting mainly
the island of Sumatra and in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of
Borneo island.
The World Bank, citing government data, said that 2.6 million hectares
(6.4 million acres) of land in Indonesia burned between June and October
2015, causing $16 billion of estimated economic damage.
Draining and conversion of peatland, often driven by palm oil
plantations, contributed to the intensity of haze from the fires, the
World Bank said.
The head of Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency told a conference in
May there would be “no more haze going to the neighbours”, as
authorities implemented new measure to combat fires, the Thomson Reuters
Foundation reported.
Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry said on Monday she wanted
to make permanent a current moratorium on issuing new licences to use
land designated as primary forest and peatland.
By November last year, the government has put more than 66 million hectares under the coverage of the moratorium. – Reuters