Sesil Maharani and Hafid Darma were still awake in front of their laptops, last Thursday, September 3. The two staff members of the Data Division of the Auriga Nusantara still operate the Quantum Geographic Information System. Other members of the Butogeni team gather around, looking at the work files of the past six months stored in the software for spatial data analysis.
"Butogeni," which means fire giant, is the name of the WhatsApp conversation group for the collaboration team covering the 2019 forest and land fires (karhutla). The WA group members are journalists from Tempo, Betahita, and Mongabay, as well as a number of researchers at the Data Directorate of the Auriga Nusantara. The working document, from the analysis of the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to the reports from the field checks, must be double-checked that morning to ensure that the confirmation letters sent to the three companies contain the complete finding of the collaboration team.
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