Population pressures blamed for haze

Population pressures blamed for haze

Jakarta's acceptance of responsibility for the forest fires and its decree that fire should not be used for land clearance are major steps in dealing with the haze problem. The question now is one of implementation, says Robert Fenton

SINGAPORE: As human populations have increased, the world's forests have gone. This has occurred in all countries and, so far, no one has learnt from the past to leave some reasonable proportion of forest. It seems to be a lesson each nation painfully learns for itself.

The elimination of more than 80 percent of the original forests in Thailand and the Philippines since the World War II was spread over 50 years and had not been accompanied by the current scale of smoke-pollution.

Southeast Asia's present misfortune is that this process, which has historically taken hundreds of years, has been accelerated by the combined impact of increasing populations and the demands on resources for economic development in Indonesia.

So the forests of Sumatra, and to a lesser extent those of Kalimantan, are being cleared over a few decades. Because of the weather patterns in September to November, the smoke drifts toward Peninsular Malaysia.

To blame the El Nio pattern is illusory. This has occurred many times in the past without this year's unacceptable levels of smoke-pollution. But El Nio does accentuate a bad year.

There are several reasons why forest-clearing is currently so intensive in Indonesia:

(1) There is a great plywood industry which is facing a rapidly declining source of virgin logs. So it is exploiting previously-logged forest for raw material.

(2) These logs are at a lower stumpage than from the original forest.

(3) Then reforestation in Indonesia is accompanied with a considerable subsidy.

(4) The new plantations (and the other forms of land-use) are easier to establish, and grow better if planted on ex-rainforest sites rather than on the degraded grassland areas (lalang - which, in turn, result from successive fires).

(5) The population of Java is a third greater than the combined populations of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore; these people are increasingly voting with their feet. This means moving into Sumatra, where the soils are fundamentally better than in Kalimantan. However, as soils are poorer than in Java, a larger unit area is required to support each person, hence clearing is greater.

Apart from uses of converted rain forest for agricultural plantations (rubber and palm oil) and conventional agriculture for permanent settlement, there is cultivation for cash crops for sale in Java and Sumatra, and the continuation of the eons-old shifting cultivation agriculture (this was usually the convenient cause given for the smoke, an excuse easily rejected as the centuries of such subsistence agriculture had never given rise to the actual volume of today's smoke).

There have been two major changes in the past three years. The first is the Indonesian government has clearly accepted responsibility for these fires. This is a fundamental point of great importance as it clears the way for more constructive efforts.

Then at the tactical level, it has decreed that fires are not to be used for land-clearing. This illustrates the most constructive way of dealing with the problem. The problem now is to get it implemented.

New pulp mills being established (two very large ones have just come into production) are clearing logged rain forest for raw materials, but are supplementing this as fast as possible with plantation wood. In compliance with Jakarta's decrees, it is reported that the big companies are no longer using fire as a land-clearing tool.

Fire has been used, as it is the cheapest way of removing forest. But its real economic cost is unacceptable. The way is now clear for the Indonesian government to act directly to use other ways as the population accepts that fires are illegal. Granted it will take time and much propaganda effort to convert the locals from burning. But this is an internal matter.

The tactical alternatives to fire are to utilize as much wood as possible so as to reduce the amount of wood residue; and to pile this residue wood where it can rot.

The growth of population, with its demands for firewood as such, will result in relatively smokeless fires (on hearths). For example, at present about 80 million rural people in Java use the firewood available on that not-very-big island.

Sumatra's population will soon rise to more than 70 million, so this outlet becomes increasingly important. The new planned pulp mills can provide a growing outlet for the residual wood. Once plantations are established for these big industrial plants, it would be soon found that the recycling of nutrients is important, so the new plantations are unlikely to be burnt after logging for this reason alone.

The planned clearing by machines, after stratifying by topography class, was suggested earlier. The smoke can be greatly alleviated. The recent release of US$7 billion on a direct governmental basis would be an opportunity to include a planned program of smoke-reduction. For example, there is an enormous program of rural education to be undertaken, a burden which can be shared by advertisers on television.

This program does not cover the burning peat. Both Sumatra and Kalimantan have a high proportion of swamp forest, which has been heavily logged. So large areas of peat soils are exposed and, when they dry out, are easily set alight. Peat fires are notoriously difficult to put out and can burn for decades.

The strategic battle has already been won. The problem has been acknowledged and use of fire for clearing banned. There is a current extra direct tactical cost in the substitution of initially more expensive land clearing methods. But this cost will soon be recouped, as the relatively scanty nutrients are recycled for the future land uses, rather than wasted in smoke. The education program needed is very large.

So the outlook is hopeful as the decisive political change has been made. The golden opportunity of linking aid with a desirable course of rural action has to be taken.

The situation reviewed here assumes, of course, that there is little likelihood of the forest remaining in an unused state. The question of sustentation is another matter. It appears extraneous, as the forests are being removed in any case.

Dr. Robert Fenton is a Solo Forestry Consultant, working primarily on Southeast Asia and Japan. He is currently based in New Zealand.