Speaking to the press after attending a coordination meeting on land and forest fire control here on Thursday, she said the government can no longer rely on the existing system and that it must have a strong system to handle land and forest fires.
Compared with the previous years, land and forest fire fights which involved the National Natural Disaster Mitigation Board (BNPB), the Indonesian Military (TNI), the National Police (Polri), and regional governments had shown good results, with the number of hotspots declining significantly, she said.
"This indicates that operational management in the field ran properly. But we will find it difficult if we maintain the current system. Therefore, we have no other choice but to develop a new system," she said.
The monitoring of hotspots has so far been quite good because it directly involves the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency, the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) and the Environment and Forestry Ministry.
But the monitoring of hotspots is only limited to the indication of forest fires without any efforts to handle them optimally, Siti said.
The government is considering whether it should set up command posts to handle land and forest fires at the sub-district or district level. In addition, it is also considering providing incentives to villages to encourage land and forest fire control initiatives.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
