Jakarta Globe 10 Nov 14;
Commuters cross a bridge as thick haze blankets Pekanbaru on Sept. 16, 2014. ProtectionObservers say policy makers should ponder why people are lighting forests on fire, while some stepped-up law enforcement wouldn’t hurt, either. (AFP Photo/Forza Alfachrozie)
Jakarta. Greenpeace Southeast Asia has called once again on Singapore and Indonesia to work together and find solutions to what has become a recurrent regional scourge: the annual choking haze from fires burning in forest and peatland areas on Sumatra.
“Clearing the haze is not simply a matter of enacting strong laws against burning, then prosecuting people who light fires. You need to look at where the fires are burning, and why,” said Teguh Surya, a political analyst with Greenpeace’s Indonesia Forests Campaign, on Saturday.
“Many of the worst fires are in Riau’s peatlands, which have been cleared and drained for oil palm and pulp plantations. Once fires start in drained peatlands, they burn and burn, smouldering underground, and no one can effectively deal with them until the monsoon comes,” Teguh said.
Teguh’s comments came during a four-day event involving a roundtable of academics, corporations and NGOs organized by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
After Singapore experienced its worst smoke haze on record in 2013, the Singapore government in September 2014 enacted a law designed to ensure accountability for transboundary air pollution.
The law has yet to make inroads into the problem, with hundreds of fires still burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The question of blame for the fires was posed during Thursday’s roundtable, and according to Teguh: “Companies are quick to point the finger at small-scale farmers, who they say don’t have the technology to properly manage the land, and resort to burning before planting crops.
“But blaming local communities is disingenuous at best. The peatland landscapes which burn each year have been drained by massive networks of deep canals dug into peatlands with excavators — heavy equipment that small-scale farmers simply don’t have.”
Indonesia, Singapore and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should cooperate in the spirit of that body’s Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, which Indonesia ratified after a decade-long delay last September, Greenpeace said.
Implementing the pact requires concrete legal steps in Indonesia, including regulations to ensure full legal protection for peatlands, and strengthening and extending the current moratorium on new forest clearing permits due to expire in May 2015.
The private sector also has a key role to play in fighting and preventing the ongoing haze crisis, Teguh said: “Four of the most prominent traders in palm oil — Wilmar, GAR, Cargill and APICAL — committed to a No Deforestation Pledge last month in New York. Now the question is what steps these traders will take to prevent fires in their supply chains.”
