Mr. Habibie urged officials on Monday to take a coordinated approach to stop forest fires in Sumatra and in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, from spreading. The Indonesian environment minister, Panangian Siregar, said that in Kalimantan most of the fires had been started by farmers using traditional slash and burn methods to prepare land for planting. In Sumatra, some of the fires had been set by plantations, he added. Bambang Hero Saharjo, a forester at the Bogor Agricultural University, said Tuesday that plantation companies were behind about 80 percent of the fires burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Since 1997, Indonesian law has banned the use of fire to clear the land in the annual dry season, from July to October.
Companies breaching the law are liable to heavy fines and even loss of their concessions.
In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Saharjo noted that after the 1997 fires, the Forestry and Plantations Ministry had identified 176 companies suspected of using fire to clear their land. Yet none had been successfully prosecuted. By using outsiders to set the fires and contending that the blaze spread from elsewhere, the companies were able to convert forest land to plantation use, he said. The smoke mixed with pollution from the burning of peat and coal beds, and from transport and industry, to create dangerous smog. Officials in Malaysia and Singapore emphasize that so far in 1999 the intermittent haze from Indonesia has not reached unhealthy levels in their cities, unlike in 1997-98.