JOE COCHRANEOCT New York Times 8 Oct 15;
SINGAPORE — Savir Singh’s taxi rolled into downtown Singapore, taking an overpass that provides a stunning view of the popular hotels and tourist attractions around Marina Bay.
The only problem was that he could barely see them. Thick haze from forest fires set in neighboring Indonesia to clear land for agriculture has blanketed this island state for weeks, and has spread to Malaysia and southern Thailand.
While many Singaporeans have sought refuge from the pollution in their homes, offices or shopping malls, Mr. Singh’s only haven is his mobile workplace, and a small bottle of eyedrops lying near his armrest.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing to the partly obscured Singapore Flyer, a 540-foot-tall Ferris wheel. “I wish they had haze in Jakarta. Then the government there would do something about it.”
Mr. Singh’s anger is part and parcel of a near-annual ritual: Fires set in Sumatra and the Indonesian side of Borneo blanket parts of Southeast Asia with smoke for weeks. While this has been going on for decades, an especially long dry season this year coupled with the effects of El Niño, threaten to make it the worst on record, scientists say.
Around the region, flights have been grounded, schools have been closed, and tens of thousands of people have sought medical treatment for respiratory problems, allergies, eczema and other ailments. The first night of an international sports competition, the FINA Swimming World Cup, set for last Saturday and hosted by Singapore, was canceled because of health concerns — as was a marathon in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysia capital, set to be run the next morning.
This year, there have been more vocal complaints from people affected in Singapore, Malaysia and even in Indonesia. There has also been high-profile sniping among government leaders, along with lawsuits, investigations and arrests of accused fire-starters — a familiar replay from 2013, when the region suffered its last major bout of haze.
After the skies cleared in 2013, the issue was once again forgotten — until last month, when the crisis erupted anew.
The consensus this year is the same as it was then: The slash-and-burn techniques used in Indonesia’s palm oil industry are continuing unabated, and there is no magic bullet for ending the practice — or the haze it causes — in the short term.
Finding the long-term solution requires reducing agriculture in Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatland, curtailing slash-and-burn methods for clearing land and halting the conversions of forests to agricultural uses including palm oil, said Peter Holmgren, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research, a global scientific organization with its headquarters in Bogor, Indonesia.
“Fire is the most cost-effective way of clearing, which is why it is done,” he said.
Finding a permanent solution is daunting enough, but more than a month into the crisis, it seems that the region cannot curb the haze in the short term. Indonesia says that its military personnel are battling more than 1,000 forest-fire clusters, while Greenpeace says that figure does not include fires that started aboveground on peatland and are now burning out of control.
Up until Wednesday, Indonesia had rebuffed offers by neighbors to help it battle the blazes and had even admonished Singaporean and Malaysian leaders for daring to complain about the haze.
On Thursday, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia said his government had requested “help and assistance” the day before from Singapore and Malaysia, as well as Russia and Japan, in getting the peatland fires under control, according to a statement released by his cabinet secretariat.
Mr. Joko said his government had specifically requested firefighting aircraft with a water-carrying capacity of 12 to 15 tons, saying that Indonesian planes currently fighting the blazes have carrying capacities of between two and three tons.
The aid request seemed to reflect a new seriousness from the Indonesian government.
Late last month, the country’s outspoken vice president, Jusuf Kalla, repeated a statement he made earlier in the year in which he said that neighboring countries “should be grateful” to Indonesia for the clean air they have the other 11 months of the year.
During the 2013 haze crisis, Agung Laksono, a senior Indonesian cabinet minister at the time, compared Singaporean leaders to a child having a temper tantrum after they complained about the impact that thick haze was having on tourism, which is a major contributor to Singapore’s economy.
“It’s like a blame game,” said Bustar Maitar, global leader of the Indonesia Forest Campaign at Greenpeace.
“Of course all the fires are coming from Indonesia, but Singapore is enjoying the ‘deforestation economy’ of Indonesia as a financial center,” he said, “and there are many Malaysian palm oil companies operating in Indonesia, and Singaporean companies are there as well.”
Ultimately, Mr. Maitar said, the cycle will continue until rain forest deforestation is severely curtailed in Indonesia, where it remains rampant, and the Indonesian government bans the draining and clearing of peatland for agricultural use. Currently, Indonesian government policy allows peatland of less than about nine feet deep to be cleared.
“That’s the only long-term way to stop haze,” he said.
Then there is the issue of who is responsible for the fires. As in 2013, this time around, there has been ample finger-pointing: Multinational palm oil companies, pulp and paper companies, the smaller plantations that sell to them, traditional farmers and even day laborers have all been blamed for starting the fires — and they in turn have blamed one another.
On Wednesday, NTUC FairPrice, Singapore’s largest supermarket chain, released a statement saying it had pulled from its shelves toilet paper and other products sourced from Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies.
The supermarket said it had made the move “following notification from the Singapore Environment Council that it has instituted a temporary restriction on the use of the ‘Singapore Green Label’ certification for A.P.P. products,” the statement said.
On Monday, the council had released a statement saying that it took action after an Asia Pulp & Paper subsidiary was “one of five companies named by the National Environment Agency (NEA) suspected to be contributing to the haze pollution.”
Aida Greenbury, managing director of sustainability for Asia Pulp & Paper, said in a statement on Thursday that the company was “firmly against” the intentional setting of forest fires and would disengage from any supplier proven guilty of illegally starting one.
“We understand why FairPrice feels the need to take urgent action and we feel the same urgency also in addressing this haze issue, but accuracy is just as important,” she said. “The fire situation is complex, and both the Singapore and Indonesia governments, and authorities are still investigating the situation.”
Ang Peng Hwa, a university professor and founder of an antihaze activist group in Singapore, is promoting an American model for dealing with environmental negligence: suing those responsible, using a law passed by the Singaporean Parliament in 2014.
Mr. Ang noted that under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, Singapore-listed companies involved in illegal land clearance in Indonesia can be sued in civil court for causing financial losses to businesses and individuals.
People have been coming forward to say that they have lost business because of the haze, Mr. Ang said. The prospective plaintiffs include a sporting events company and a sports training academy, though no lawsuits have yet been filed under the new law.
Possible injured parties include upscale hotels that suffer canceled bookings during haze periods and the organizers of the annual F1 Singapore Grand Prix. The F1 race was held on Sept. 20 despite concerns about air quality.
The problem, Mr. Ang said, is that it is very difficult to determine liability because “there are layers that protect ultimate owners of companies.”
Yet, he said, the fact that some people have already come forward asking about financial compensation for haze through Singapore’s courts leads to an inescapable conclusion that should concern governments around the region. “People are getting more angry, more worked up.”
Whether that anger will lead to more lasting change is yet to be seen. Mr. Ang is not optimistic. “They burn for a period, everyone gets upset, and then people forget,” he said of the fires.
