Haze a perennial calamity in W. Kalimantan

Haze a perennial calamity in W. Kalimantan

Bambang Bider, Contributor/Pontianak

During the mornings of certain months every year, visibility in West Kalimantan is only a few meters -- it does not go beyond your yard. Small children and toddlers, pregnant women, the elderly and those with asthma will all have difficulty breathing.

Others going to work have to fight their way through the thick haze created by slash-and-burn farming. For the past two months, mornings have been very miserable in West Kalimantan.

During the mornings and overnight, the air pollution index usually stands over 700 -- above the permissible threshold -- a condition hazardous to those conducting outdoor activities.

About 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 18, for example, firemen from the West Kalimantan forestry service was fighting hard to extinguish fires raging across a peat bog on Jl. Budi Oetomo, Pontianak, Siantan Hulu district, a small part within the vast area of peat bogs that surround Pontianak.

The fire is still burning.

If you go out during the day and rub your palms together several times in bright light, you will find dark soot on your hands. Your eyes will be sore because of the ash, which come from the fires ravaging the land.

Observing this condition, head of West Kalimantan health agency, dentist Oscar Primadi, instructed all health centers in the province's municipalities and regencies to educate local farmers about the adverse impact of burning land on human health. Oscar said the agency also ensured local health centers had a sufficient supply of medicine.

"Every health center has distributed masks to the public in an effort to raise community awareness on the hazards of haze," he said.

Over the past two weeks, Pontianak's Soedarso Hospital has received 10 patients suffering from upper respiratory infection and another six with diarrhea.

At St. Antonius Hospital, also in Pontianak, however, medical records department head Rita said no new diarrhea or upper respiratory infection cases had been admitted to the hospital for two weeks.

"Our hospital is ready for frequent cases of diarrhea and upper respiratory infection. If we don't have any rain in September, perhaps, there will be more patients with these two illnesses," she said.

Titi Sunarti, a housewife living in Siantan Hulu, said her two-year-old had a chronic cough and breathing difficulties because of the haze.

"This haze bothers me very much because it comes every year. I don't know how long this condition will last. We in Pontianak wait for the arrival of the haze each coming year. It's the same every year and affects us psychologically," she said sadly.

The haze resulting from the slash-and-burn method applied to plantations and farmland throughout West Kalimantan, particularly in the regencies of Sintang, Bengkayang, Sanggau and Kapuas Hulu, as well as Singkawang municipality, has inflicted great losses upon many parties.

Data from the National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration (NOAA) satellite shows that hot spots are likely to develop in Sanggau, Landak, Sintang, Ketapang, Mempawah, Kapuas Hulu, Bengkayang, Singkawang and Sambas. The NOAA data of Aug. 21 showed 784 hotspots in West Kalimantan.

Fires burning in the peat bogs of Pontianak are very hard to put out, and as no rain has fallen in the last two months, the condition is expected to get worse.

The haze also disrupts flight schedules and hinders economic activities. Almost everybody that The Jakarta Post met said they suffered bouts of dizziness, while children are vulnerable to diarrhea and combined diarrhea and vomiting.

Executive director of the West Kalimantan Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi West Kalimantan) Yohanes RJ said the areas where forest fires had been raging were legally plantations and forest concessions.

"On the ground, it is indeed hard to determine whether it is the local people or the forestry companies that are involved in burning the land. It has been the practice of most forestry companies to hire locals to burn down and clear the forest ... this practice has been going on since 1887," he said.

Yohanes also said the chronic haze problem indicated that the local administration had failed to respond properly, and pointed to the lack of law enforcement. He added the root cause was that the West Kalimantan provincial administration was devoid of any environmental vision.

A more serious problem is that the West Kalimantan administration has simply let the haze problem persist.

"This is the case because of poor response from the administration, bad law enforcement and the administration's lack of environmental vision. To let the haze continue unabated may be construed as a human rights violation, because it is the government's responsibility to overcome the haze."