Hazy problem
Hazy problem
It's that time of the year again. Haze, due to billowing smoke
from forest fires, has clouded many parts of the archipelago,
particularly in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The haze is wreaking
havoc with people's daily activities and becoming a health
hazard. The lack of visibility has also disrupted flights and
shipping services.
Our neighbors -- Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei -- are also
affected whenever the wind blows in their direction. So far they
have not complained too loudly.
As usual, the long dry summer has perpetuated the haze
problems. But there seems to be no doubt today about the cause of
these forest fires. They were deliberately lit to clear land and
make way for new plantations, timber estates and new settlements
under the government's transmigration program.
The fires got out of control because the dry weather makes the
entire forest highly flammable. The sad reality is that this is a
man-made, and really unnecessary, tragedy.
The fires come at a time when Indonesia has been widely
criticized for the way it manages, or critics would say
mismanages, its forestry resources.
It is abhorrent to learn that the practice of deliberately
setting fires to clear up tracts of forest land is still
permitted. Forest experts argue that the burning method is the
fastest and cheapest but one does not have to be an expert to
know that it is destructive too.
We draw little comfort from the government's threat to revoke
the licenses of contractors who continue to set these fires. The
blazes have already spread and gotten out of control. The threat,
even if heeded, is only good at discouraging new fires from being
started.
What we really want to hear is what the government is doing
about the fires raging in parts of Indonesia right now. In spite
of their reoccurrence, the nation appears to be completely
helpless to prevent forest fires.
Our best hope is for the rain to fall soon and extinguish the
smoldering fires. Judging from the exceptionally long drought
seasons in the past, rain will not start falling until late
September or October, if we're lucky. There is a possibility we
may have to wait until November for relief.
It is deja vu. Every few years or so, we seem to have this
problem. And each time there is little anyone can do except to
wait for a downpour of rain. The only consolation today is that
there is a greater consensus about who the culprits are.
In the past, everyone blamed everybody else. The government
blamed the slash-and-burn nomadic farmers for causing the fires;
non-governmental organizations blamed the forest concessionaires
and plantation companies for their reckless practices of burning
forests and the government for their lax control of these
companies; and the forest estates and plantation companies
pointed their fingers at the weather.
The nomadic tribes in Kalimantan, in spite of their slash-and-
burn farming practices, have been ruled out as the perpetrators
of these fires.
Studies have shown that these tribes have developed a knack
for picking the right time and place for their burning without
upsetting nature. They have lived on the land for generations and
are unlikely to jeopardize their own survival by recklessly
setting fires.
Thus the onus for preventing future fires falls on contractors
-- usually large companies licensed to clear forest land -- and
the government -- whose duty is to supervise their activities.
As we wait and pray for the rain, the government should start
thinking of ways of preventing future forest fires. One effective
step would be to toughen the legislation and regulations on
clearing forest land.
The answer seems easy, but the political will to bring big
businesses under control seems harder to come by.