Forest fires have raged through Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island, threatening the country`s biodiversity and producing a health-threatening smog across the region. The fires have also destroyed parts of national parks in Kalimantan and Irian Jaya, on the Indonesian side of New Guinea island. The fires had destroyed the fertility of the ground and this would lead to food shortages. The fires would also cause floods because there were not enough trees to contain water from the hills or mountains. U.N. disaster experts said in Geneva on Tuesday the worst of the forest fires appeared to be over in Indonesia, but they warned that the crisis would continue until rains arrived. The U.N. World Meteorological Organisation predicts that monsoon rains, due this month, will be delayed until November because of the El Nino weather pattern which has disrupted climates around the world and brought severe drought to Indonesia. Ron Lilley, species conservation co-ordinator of the Jakarta office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said recently the smoke from the fires could have significant impact on primary forests. WWF has said studies in areas burned in east Kalimantan during a drought in the 1980s showed fruit-eating animals and birds - like the orang-utan and the hornbill - were especially affected.