Govt temporarily closes public forest park for tourists

Banjarbaru, (Antaranews) - The South Kalimantan Forestry Agency temporarily closed down the natural tourist sites of the Sultan Adam, Mandi Angin, Public Forest Park (Tahura) for touring participants and tourists to anticipate fires.


Head of the agency Hanif Faisol Nurrofiq in Banjarbaru said on Wednesday, based on the evaluation, one of the causes of fire in the public forest park was the carelessness of tourists.

"There have been forest fires, one of which was caused by a campfire that was not properly extinguished by tourists, which resulted in extensive forest fires," he said.

In addition, he added, cigarette butts that were thrown away by touring participants were also one of the causes of the fire.

According to Hanif, there is currently extreme heat and drought, while in the Mandi Angin area, the soil is relatively shallow, so the rocks become easily hot.

These conditions, make the land in the area flammable if there is a little fire could be a trigger.

"Avoiding these conditions, finally since a while ago, we closed the natural tourist location temporarily," he said.

Until now, he added, the burned forest area had reached 530 hectares spread in the forests of South Kalimantan. While the realization of plantings reached 10,200 hectares spread across critical land from a target of 32 thousand hectares.