TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) revealed that Indonesia has been mostly hit by Hydro-Meteorological disasters throughout 2017, which include tornadoes, drought, forest fires, mass-flooding, and landslides.
“We detected an increase in a trend where 95 percent of the natural disasters that hit Indonesia are hydro-meteorological,” said BNPB Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho on Tuesday, December 6.
Sutopo said that it is driven by Indonesia’s extreme environmental damages such as deforestation, land degradation, and the increased critical watersheds. He reasoned that hydro-meteorological disasters are also caused by the fact that many Indonesians citizens are not apprehensive towards disasters.
Annually, the Indonesian Government could only rehabilitate forests up to 250,000 acres. Meanwhile, according to Sutopo, Indonesia’s annual deforestation could reach 750,000 acres. “This, of course, creates a deficit of half a million acres each year,” said Sutopo.
Sutopo argued that societies awareness and understanding towards disasters is a critical element to grow a sense of environmental awareness in Indonesia’s society, especially considering that most of them live in areas that are prone to disasters.
RIANI SANUSI PUTRI
