A day before, I was told by our secretary in Palangkaraya that they had not seen the sun for a few days. It has been dry season and it has not rained for 2 months now. At some point somewhere in the rainforest of Borneo, a spot in the peat land caught fire and has spread throughout the region. The smoke from the fire has covered most area in Borneo a.k.a. Kalimantan (meaning “rivers of diamonds”).

The inhabitants of the rainforest don’t seem to learn their lesson every year. Peat land easily catches fire and many of the local people living there recklessly burn their garbage outside their homes, not realizing (or maybe not even caring) that the peat soil may catch fire, which spreads deep in the ground and quietly throughout the island. Even international palm oil and other companies who are trying to clear the land are taking the easy and cheaper way out by burning down the forest. Every year around this time it seems that the government are busy enforcing the law. But as soon as the dry season is over, little (if not nothing at all) is done to prevent it from happening again the next year.

Mike Dammann and I sat quietly in the plane. Nobody was talking, there was absolute silence. We looked out the window as the plane approached the runway. We were able to see a few fire sources in the distance. I used to live here in this little city of Central Kalimantan. The last “smokey” season was back in 2006 which was probably just as bad as this one. At the time, people were inhaling dangerous smoke for 3 months. At the time, the dry, fiery season resulted in the deaths of a few local children.

As my plane was landing, I wondered how many more years do people have to go through the fire season and burn Borneo down. Nobody seems to remember doing something enough to prevent this from happening again every year.

The view from the plane before we landed

Mike Dammann was sitting next to me and nervously mumbling, worried that the plane is going to crash. Even without hearing the other passengers saying anything, I knew that the rest of the people on the plane was thinking about the same thing. Everywhere we looked, all we saw was thick gray smoke. How could any pilot in the world land in blindness like that. But I tried to tell myself that if it was impossible for the plane to land, the airline would have delayed the flight once again.

The plane had been delayed for 6 hours that day. We were supposed to leave on Saturday, Sep 5, 2009. But the plane had been canceled due to smoke and all flights had been delayed to the next day. On Sunday, the smoke had not gone  any better and they once again had had to delay it to Monday. When we finally had arrived at the airport and ready to board at 8.40am, we were informed that the airport in Palangkaraya was closed down. It was impossible for planes to land.

A woman with 2 kids had been at the airport for 2 days now. She was crying and literally begging the airline to compensate for the 2-day delayed flight back home to Palangkaraya. She had been without any money for 2 days and had been staying in the boarding room for 2 days without food. The two little kids looked tired and the younger boy was heard crying every now and again. When it was approaching 2pm, we were finally told to board.

When the plane landed and the exit door of the plane was opened, the strong smell of smoke irritated my nose and I started to sneeze a few times. Mike Dammann and I stayed at a Swiss friend whose house was turned into a guest house with a few bedrooms for $10 a night. After the first night there, Mike had trouble breathing because of the smoke and I had an alergy attack, sneezing, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes. For the next 3 days, we stayed in the office area where there was air conditioner.

For Mike and me, it was only a few days stay on business. We have the choice to leave anytime we want when we can not stand it anymore. But there are so many people in Palangkaraya who do not have that luxury. An air pollution meter that the local government has set up in the center of the city showed the indicator at the highest, most dangerous point. The hot topic among the locals was the polution indicator. But then again, almost every year, the indicator was all the way up to the most dangerous point like this… and every year, they would talk about it and forget it when the indicators were down to normal.

I wonder, how many more years will this be going on?

Smoke at the guest house.

CARE Indonesia is one of the many organizations helping the Indonesian government to preserve and rehabilitate 100k Ha of carbon-rich peat land in Central Kalimantan. Another organization Greenline Care Indonesia is also in the efforts of restoring 183k Ha of rainforest in East Kalimantan. There is a potential revenue from carbon offset of billions of dollars annually in the near future through saving the forest. However, the greatest challenge would be to change the behavior of the community to support the fight against deforestation.

Half of the forest in Central Borneo has been cleared while the other half still forested but is under threat. However, this represents only a fraction of an area of forest that was cleared in the 1990’s by the orders of former President Suharto. He mistakenly hoped of growing vast crops of rice on Borneo which is mostly peat land. At the time, about 1 million hectares of forest were cleared. The majority of this land is sitting on carbon-rich peat swamps.

Peat forest as found in Central Borneo soak up vast amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide) locking away carbon in the wood and soil. Every year, 1 Ha of peat soil releases 2,000 tonnes of CO2 as well as large amounts of methane which is a more powerful greenhouse gas than Co2.

In the meanwhile, despite the disaster the carbon industry sees a great opportunity in the vast amount of carbon locked away in the peat soils. By stopping the peat land from burning and doing replanting on the bare land carbon traders sell carbon offset, which is the balance of reduced carbon amounts through deforestation prevention.

There are now many green companies interested in a project that aims to use carbon credits from saving forests to reward developing nations. This project is called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Projects like these are tightly backed up by the United Nations and it is hoped that REDD will become a broader climate pact and ready by 2012.

For more information about projects like these, please fill out this form.

Deforested Borneo

Worried villagers say that they used to live peacefully with Komodos. The lizards never used to attack them or the children when they walk in the forest, no matter how dangerous they really are.

The komodo dragons are believed to be descendants of a larger lizard living on Indonesia’s Java island or Australia 30,000 years ago. They eat about 80% of their weight and go without eating for the next several weeks. Before 1994, villagers used to feed the komodos with bones and deer skin but since the government issued a policy in 1994 prohibiting the villagers to feed them the beasts have become hungry and now are more aggressive.

The reason for the policy was to “keep the komodo’s instinct and ability to hunt”. By feeding the animals, villagers are making them lazy and the animals will lose their ability to hunt and therefore are threatened to die and extinct. Ironically, now that the dragons are stimulated to hunt, the inhabitants of the islands are now the ones in danger. When they requested the government to build a high wall around the villages to keep the Komodo Dragon’s out, the idea was also rejected as the wall would be considered as a “strange thing in the middle of the national park”.

Fear now spreads over the islands of the komodos home. Even park rangers are nervous. Before the komodos were hungry, the villagers were “goofing around with the lizards, poking their tails, hugging their backs and running in front of them, pretending they’re being chased”. Now those days are over.

The government is currently campaigning to get the Komodo National Park into the New 7 Wonders of Nature. While they are trying hard to do what is best for the komodo dragons, the government should still prioritize human beings first and find a real solution to keep the villagers safe.

After all, in the beginning the world and everything in it was created for us and not the other way around.

Because most of the population of orangutans are remote and scattered, finding a new population that has never been seen is very significant as this may help orangutans from extinction.

New Population of Orangutans