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Jakarta. To many people living on the slopes of Mount Merapi, their livestock is their pride.

The residents value the animals so much that, even as the volcano sputters searing lava and heat clouds, they make the hazardous trek back to their homes to tend to their cows.

To curb the practice, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has proposed a solution: the government will spend Rp 100 billion ($11.2 million) to buy the cows.

“I have decided this morning [that] the government will buy the cows at a proper price,” the president said in Jakarta on Friday.

“People often feel attached to their livestock and will stay at home or return during the day to tend to them and feed them.”

Yudhoyono said unscrupulous people were buying these cows from villagers at unfairly low prices.

“This is not good. Don’t let our people, who are already suffering because of the disaster, endure more losses,” he said.

Yudhoyono said the task of listing the number of cows would not be assigned to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) so that it would be able to focus on handling the disaster by coordinating emergency relief and rescue efforts.

“[Agung Laksono], the coordinating minister for people’s welfare, as well as governors and district chiefs in Yogyakarta and Central Java will do the buying [of cows] and other things that will relieve the people from any burden, so that they could obey the government’s instruction to go to safer places,” he said.

Most of the casualties from the Merapi eruption — which began on Oct. 26 — were killed by heat clouds flowing within the danger zone, which had been widened from a 15-kilometer radius to 20 km in less than a week.

But villagers like Nanto Prayinto still seem undeterred by the dangers.

Whenever he can, Nanto hikes to Tegalmulyo village in Klaten, located about seven kilometers from the volcano’s mouth, to look after his cows.

“I know it is dangerous, but my cows are my whole fortune,” he said. “They are my investment for my family’s future.”

Sigit Riyanto, an official at Klaten’s Kelamang subdistrict, said residents were hard-pressed to remain in the safety of evacuation centers.

“Sometimes they value their livestock more than their own lives,” Sigit said.

Agriculture Minister Suswono said the government was currently conducting a census of the cow population on Merapi’s slope, with surveyors listing all livestock owners and the number of cows in their possession.

“We will buy the cows that could be saved,” Suswono said. “For the cows that became victims, we will replace them.”

Regional government officials had earlier said that their limited budget made it impossible to buy the cows or replace ones killed in the eruption.

In his opinion, Suswono said most of the farmers would not mind selling their livestock to the government, then buying new cows later when the situation in Merapi returned to normal.

The government had also started to evacuate cows in Klaten and Yogyakarta’s Sleman district, the minister said.

Mount Merapi, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, has erupted almost daily since last week, according to the Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation Agency (PVMBG).

On Thursday, the agency said heat clouds spread as far as 11.5 km from the volcano’s crater.