LEARNING FROM THE GREAT WISDOM OF THE NATURE

S. Djuweng and Edi Petebang

West Kalimantan is the most affected area of the smoke from the forest fire. State ministry of Environment, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja states, that some 20 million people are endangered by the smoke. The flight from and to Pontianak have been canceling for three weeks. The travel agents stop their activities. The land transportation from and to Kuching also halted. In normal condition five buses go and came to and from Kuching to Pontianak.

ChaoticThe authority in Malaysia even plan to evacuated 2.2 million people of Sarawak to Peninsular Malaysia. In addition, the Sarawak State government have been declared a state of emergency. The school are in holidays. Moreover, a hundred of fire brigade members have been sent to Pontianak to help the local government to domesticate the fire.

Smoke not only affected Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah, but also Southern Philippine. In the telephone conversation with Wilfred Tangau from Sabah on Tuesday (Sept 24), the local people in Kota Kinabalu are wearing mask when travelling outside home. “Situation is a bit chaotic. It’s dangerous to be outside home. I even stop smoking,”he said through international line.

Different from Sarawak government, West Kalimantan provincial government only states that the province is in a state of red alert, a level below state of emergency. The schools holiday was started on Monday morning. Apart from the closing of airport and travel agency, it seems that people are not well aware about the situation.

In Kalimantan side, it is reported that 20 students collapsed in Banjarmasin. At the same time, health authority in Pontianak states that the number of people visiting private clinic and hospital are reaching 4,000 per day. Main hospitals in Pontianak are also full. In kinder section, the patients are far above the capacity level. Santo Antonius hospital in Pontianak preparing temporary floor- bed for children.

According to Pontianak City Mayor, R.A. Siregar, the air pollution level is 1,890.3 microgram perm3. Therefore he urged the people to wear mask, to stop school activities, to warn the parents to control their children for not playing in the open air; to instruct all drivers to turn on their vehicle lamps; and to urge the people to monitor the next development of the situation from the authority.
The street-seller children are also wearing and selling masks. Normally, a simple mask is sold at Rp 200.00, but it increase to Rp 500.00. A long the street, all newspapers stand offers the mask. The price of a mask is range from Rp 500.00-Rp 2,500, depends on the quality.

Moreover, night life are temporarily stopped. All discotheques, pubs, keraoke, restaurant at all classes are still in operation, but are lack of attendants (sepi pengunjung). Mr. Miden Maniamas, a traditional chief of Kanayatn Dayak as quoted in Kalimantan Review states that the present smoke condition never happened during his 58 years life-time. “This is extraodinary. I strongly refused that the smoke is caused by Dayak farmers. We know how to control fire when we burn our paddy-field or ladang,”he said.

On Saturday (sept 20) a group of students and youth called themselve “Forum for Supporting President Soeharto’s statement on Smoke” demonstrating the head of Provincial Office of Cash-Crop Estates (Kepala Dinas Perkebunan Kalbar), Mr. Ir. Karsan Sukardi. He made a statement as quoted by Akcaya local newspaper as saying that the smoke is caused by the traditional farmers, while President Soeharto states that the smoke comes from land clearing for HTI, estates, and transmigration sites.

Failed to meet Karsan on Saturday, the students again went to the office on Wednesday. On the dialogue facilitated by Pontianak Pontianak Militaray Commander, Karsan refused the students allegation. The students asked him to apologise to the traditional farmers. The students also will bring Karsan to adat court as he abused and harrassed the Dayak farmers. Some tourists trapped in Pontianak are really disappointed with the situation. “I would not come to Kalimantan should I knew that situation is really bad,”said Cameroon Bell from Australia. He came to Kalimantan a few months ago, travelling to the interior areas, and return to Pontianak and then trapped in the smoke.

The LosesIf we could predict the loses, the lost on biodiversity and the power of nature to regulate itself is countless loses. It need at least 35 five years for tree to regenerate. Should the awareness of the 20 million people are at the level of Sarawakian, all would go to clinic. If each one spent average of ten thousand rupiahs, then we lost by some 200 billion rupiahs. We can also include the burden of flight companies, travel agency, bus Pontianak-Kuching, and the province’s income from tourist, as well the income of restaurants, and entertainment business. How much this all? Countless. Is this in comparison with 10.9 % of economic growth of West Kalimantan?

Learning from natureIn the mid of 17 century, one of the Local Government in the United State of America declared a war against the wolfs. The wolf population were above the tolerated limits, so that they disturbed the human being. The government, then send some hunters to kill the wolf. First class hunter is not a balance rivals for wolf who could not oppose the gun and bullets. Realising that hundred of wolf killed every day, one of the hunters finally refused to shoot the wolf. When he asked why he refused to do his job, he replied “Neither wolfs nor mountains agree on what I am doing, because everything in the world has the rights to exist in itself.”. The story was told by Dr. Stephan Harding to “Towards an Ecological Economics” class at Schumacher College, United Kingdom, about two years ago.
According to Stephan, this view is then being one of the principle of Deep Ecology, that, ‘the well-being and flourishing of human and non-human Life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value); these values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes (Naess, 1995).” Deep Ecology is a meta Ecological Science.

Modern people would cynical when hearing that Indigenous Dayak people believe that Great Nature has her Great Spirit. Everything that existed has each own living spirit: Spirit of land, spirit of rivers, spirit of stones, spirit of tree and forest, and the spirit of human beings. Above all those spirits there is The Spirit of Spirits.
Considering that everything has its own spirit, everything has the same right to exists. If human beings are to use those things, they have to apply to the Spirit of Spirits, and this application occurs in the forms of ritual ceremonies.
Modern people could not hear the screaming of million of trees that logged down from Kalimantan rainforest, for various development projects: logging concession, timber industry plantation, cash-crop plantation and mine development projects. They could only enjoy the money resulted from it, to expense their luxurious lifestyle. The trees, animals, soil, water, stone and other living and non living creatures of course seems to be entrust, that it could not oppose against the human being. However, the massive exploitation on forest resource based has disturbed the balance of nature. Hence, the self-regulation of the earth is also skewed.

As found by Professor James Lovelock, a British scientist, the earth has its self-regulation power. The higher the bio-diversity, the more the earth regulate itself. On the contrary the lower the level of biodiversity the lesser the regulatory of the earth. He name this theory after a name of the Greek’s Goddess, Gaia.
The massive exploitation on natural resources for the sake of high economic growth has weaken the power of the earth to regulate itself. The waste of logging companies, the block river because of logging roads, and the erosion in the water catching areas, all have disturbed the mechanism of nature. The forest could not prevent itself from forest, as its self-defend components have been destroyed by human being.

The worse is the clearance of primary forest to develop the timber industrial plantation (HTI), and cash-crop plantation projects. All those HTI plan fast-growing species, and monoculture plantation. Evidently, they have the same size of leave, and the same thick of dried leaves on the grown. They are an easy-get burnt materials. When fire start in any part of it, it would easily spreading out to the whole area.

The Dayak is also of the opinion that everything in the world can be used to fulfill the basic needs of human being. However, human beings should not do everything even if they can do it. This basic principle has been made concrete in a set of laws that known as Customary Laws. These laws then govern the whole aspects of people livelihood.

Greedy people are not aware of their negative attitude towards the environment. At the same time, environment has no mouth to protest. When NGO activists warn that massive exploitation would endangered our planet, they are accused of opposing the development, and then opposing the authority.

The present smoke tragedy teach us that uncontrolled exploitation towards natural resources is no doubt endangered the human being. This a lesson from the silent nature.***

This article published in The Jakarta Post daily