JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities said on Thursday they would consider offers of foreign assistance to tackle the country's biggest forest fires in over a decade after President Prabowo Subianto named a new disaster management leader.
The Southeast Asian nation is facing intense criticism as it struggles to control its most intense wildfires since 2015 after an El Niño-driven drought turned forests and land highly flammable.
The fires have been raging for months and hundreds of thousands of people have contracted respiratory illnesses in the worst-hit provinces, while the transboundary haze has also hampered air quality in neighbouring countries, forcing school closures in Malaysia and East Timor.
"The sky yesterday was very yellow ... People's activities are far reduced because of this condition. We hope there will be rain soon that will ease this problem," 46-year-old Adinata, a resident of Palangka Raya city in Central Kalimantan, told Reuters.
Dozens of residents in the city, which has been darkened by thick orange smog this week, staged a protest at the governor's office on Thursday, local news reported.
Cities in Kalimantan and Sumatra have been choked by haze due to peatland fires, which smoulder slowly beneath the surface and can re-emerge anytime, and also produce thicker smoke.
The air pollution index in the regions has far exceeded the "hazardous" level of 300 with the Katingan district of Central Kalimantan registering a reading of nearly 1,600 earlier on Thursday, while the provincial capital Palangka Raya recorded nearly 1,300.
Prabowo named army general Kristomei Sianturi as the new head of disaster mitigation agency BNPB, the main body in charge of the firefighting efforts.
"I will assess our assets and see what kind of foreign aid we can accelerate," Sianturi said after his inauguration, adding he has been tasked to contain the wildfires "as soon as possible."
Malaysia last month had offered three helicopters and an aircraft to help put out the wildfires, but an official earlier this week said Indonesia is "still able to handle" the issue.
The president also named forestry ministry official Satyawan Pudyatmoko as chief of a newly formed peatland and mangrove body on Thursday, tasking him with restoring the country's peatland ecosystem and preventing repeated wildfires.
"We will restore peatland ecosystems to their former condition," he told reporters. "There are a number of peatland areas that are being prioritised and the president doesn't want any more fires."
Peatland restoration
Peatland protection group Pantau Gambut estimated that out of 24 million hectares of Indonesian peatland, 16 million hectares have been made more fire-prone as a result of ecosystem damage, including extensive deforestation and the depletion of water tables.
A 2024 study conducted by Pantau Gambut showed that only 3% of the peatland damaged by fires over the 2015 to 2019 period has been restored into forest, while 54% was converted into monoculture plantations, mainly oil palm.
A food estate project in the 1990s was among the causes of peatland degradation, deputy food minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said, and the government is aiming to drill wells to rewet peatlands and improve water canal management.
Thesa, a 19-year-old university student in Palangka Raya who has been experiencing dizziness due to haze, sought help at a volunteer organization providing oxygen for people exposed to toxic air.
"We are being exposed to the smoke everyday... and there is only a fan at my boarding room (to alleviate the smoke)."