The Jakarta Post 19 Jun 09;
It’s easy to forget the annual haze during this month of presidential campaigning. The noxious haze is back in our country, affecting the region and polluting our skies.
Schools in Riau province, Sumatra, had to close for several days in recent weeks, and its Pekanbaru airport had to be temporarily closed due to poor visibility. Dozens of hotspots, or large fires sparked by illegal fires to clear land, have been spotted in the province.
In the nearby province of Jambi, 200 hotspots have been detected in the last six months. The Jambi case is a worrying sign, since forest fires usually occur during the dry season from June to October.
The line between the dry and rainy season has blurred and forest fires are now occurring throughout the year.
The haze has caused great losses to Indonesia and also to Southeast Asia, ever since the big forest fires of 1982. Yet it seems easier for the three presidential candidates to attack a rival candidate than to attack a scourge that has called for a redress for nearly 30 years.
In the 1997-1998 fires, the region suffered US$9 billion in lost business and other costs, according to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Almost 10 million hectares of forest in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, Sulawesi and Papua went up in smoke, affecting the health and economy of 70 million people across Southeast Asia.
Malaysian authorities have reported a fall in air quality in recent days. Its Environment Ministry says more than 1,100 hotspots have been detected in Sumatra and Kalimantan, two of the islands most vulnerable to forest fires.
In recent years, Indonesia’s forest fires have expanded to also affect islands in the Pacific, as well as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand. It is not without reason the haze has been dubbed Indonesia’s biggest export to the region.
Halfway into the presidential campaign, not a single candidate has touched on this issue, nor has anyone put it in their working program. Their rhetoric so far has been full of promises but lacking in substance. Otherwise, they compete in crediting themselves for having done big things in the past, a sign of political infantilism.
If they want to talk about the economy, here is a drain of a trillion rupiah a year in health and environment costs and for losses accrued from disruptions to shipping and aviation. Indonesia has earned a bad reputation for its failure to put its house in order.
Its efforts to stem forest fires have been inadequate. The 1994 ban on the burning of forests and grasslands needs stronger enforcement. Education of smallholders needs to be continued and expanded. Big plantation companies should equip themselves with forest fire management.
The government should also ensure cooperation between all stakeholders, including farmers, plantation companies and NGOs.
And it is time for the government to ratify the ASEAN agreement to eradicate trans-border fire haze and smoke pollution. This will force the government, the only one in ASEAN that has not signed the treaty, to be proactive in tackling haze pollution from land and forest fires across the country.
