Smoke from forest fires and its threat to human health

Sarono, Indonesian NGOs Network for Forest Conservation, Jakarta

In a press conference held prior to the Earth Summit's opening on Monday in Johannesburg, South Africa, chairman of the United Nations Environmental Program, Kalus Toepfer, issued a UN preliminary report based on a study called the Asia Brown Cloud.

The report states that the pollution brought about by smog, a combination of smoke and other pollutants, covering the southern part of Asia. Recent forest fires here have generated most of this smog. This smog pollution is now a threat to millions of humans and may have an even more adverse impact on the economy.

Clouds of smog composed of dust, acids, aerosol and other particles will damage farm lands and change the rainfall pattern in the entire area in the southern part of Asia. Millions of people are threatened with drought and floods as the drastic change of the rainfall pattern has brought about adverse consequences to economic growth and health.

The smog has come from forest fires, agricultural waste, burning, sharp increases in emissions from vehicles, industries, power generating plants and from the emission of millions of inefficient cookers.

One of some 200 scientists involved in this study, the professor Victor Ramanathan, said that this smog could reduce by over 15 percent the solar energy on earth. Previously, they estimated that sunrays would be reduced but never expected that the drop would be that much.

The absorption of heat by this smog is believed to be able to heat up the lower atmospheric layer and the result will be a change in the winter period. In addition, rainfall in the eastern coastal areas of Asia will also be reduced drastically.

In addition to changing the rainfall pattern, this smog will also cause acid rain, destroy harvests and plants and inflict hundreds of thousands of people with respiratory troubles. This early warning for the state leaders to attend the summit in Johannesburg should prompt participants to action.

Many victims have fallen ill from inhaling smoke from the forest and land fires in Indonesia in this year's dry season. The smoke contains various particles and chemical substances. Tiny particles such as PM 10 (particulates of 10 micron size), when inhaled, will bring about various respiratory disturbances, such as the upper respiratory tract infection, acute relapse of bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary problems and a decrease in lung functioning. Hazardous chemical substances in smoke, some of them carcinogenic, include benzene, nitrogen, dioxide and ozone.

The combination of particles and these chemical substances may increase lung and respiratory diseases and cardiovascular trouble, eye irritation, diarrhea and skin trouble.

This time, the health of thousands of people has been adversely affected. In Palangkaraya municipality the number of people with health trouble has risen since last May. In May, the number of patients with respiratory disturbances stood at 1,896 people but in June and July this figure rose to respectively 2,020 and 2,169 people.

Forty percent of them were children below five years old. In August, the average number of patients with respiratory disturbances and diarrhea in Palangkaraya alone was recorded at over 100 people a day. On Aug. 12, there were 135 patients and then the next day, 104 people. On Aug. 14 and Aug. 16, there were 113 patients and 134 patients respectively.

As the haze enveloping Kalimantan and Sumatra becomes thicker, the number of patients affected by the smoke generated by fires will certainly increase.

Previously, the World Health Organization revealed that as a result of air pollution, Indonesia sustained losses of US$60 million (some Rp 6 trillion). These losses are calculated from the number of patients who need care and medicine, the damage to agricultural harvests and fish catches owing to the acid rain and most frightening of all, the drop in children's intelligence level due to certain carcinogens which stunt brain development.

The report says that there are two main reasons for air pollution: Forest and land fires (found in great numbers outside Java, namely in Kalimantan and Sumatra), and pollution caused by the concentration of polluting vehicles throughout overcrowded Java.

One of the main problems of this pollution is the disturbance in the community's health in general, particularly in relation to breathing and respiratory tracts. In 2000, some 10 million people suffered from respiratory trouble as a result of air pollution. The research by the Jakarta Urban Development Project (JUDP) III showed that the expenses that the community had to bear as a result of the drop in children's IQ were estimated to total Rp 176 billion in 1990 and will soar to Rp 254.4 billion by 2005.

This condition proves that the government is yet to be able to provide better services and guarantees to its people. Hopefully, the upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg will discuss the impact of haze and find a way out or a method to handle and prevent this in the future.

This would need proper coordination between government agencies at all levels.