“The haze is back again,” murmurs my 12-year-old niece as we gaze out to the horizons, from our balcony. We can’t see the buildings in the foreground. The skies overhead is a sallow grey, the sun is a burnt orange; its usual brilliance choked by the thickening cloud of vapour that has descended on most of our cities. “It’s not haze,” I retort. I can’t bring myself to call this slow but effectual poisoning of the very air we breathe, haze.
Haze isn’t a word sufficient enough to describe the acrid smog that has been the bane of our very existence for over two decades. But truth be told, we’ve not done much about it. Don a mask, and we get by. It’ll soon pass, we reason. It’s not our problem, we say, shrugging our shoulders. What can we do? We ask resignedly.
Sustaining interest in this great but slow-burning crisis is a challenge no one seems to have mastered. Only when the crisis causes or exacerbates an acute disaster, is there a flicker of anxiety, but that quickly dies away. The question is: How much worse does it have to get before we become truly worried?
ASTOUNDING SILENCE
For more than two decades, the effects of forest fires in Indonesia have resulted in a cloud of unbreathable air descending upon our cities. Haze, we called it. The acrid smoke not only contains dust and smoke particles, but sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, carbon monoxide and particulate matter. These particles can go deep into the lungs, and in some cases, enter the bloodstream, where the tiny particulate matters can even penetrate right into the small air sacs in our lungs when inhaled.
Can we afford to be apathetic knowing that our children are breathing noxious gas? We take to the streets when it comes to taxes, religion or politics. We shake our fists and morph into keyboard warriors to rant on race politics, rights and the high cost of living. Yet where’s the huge outcry when our environment is affected?
It’s funny how environment, climate change, deforestation, wildlife extinction, natural disasters and unmitigated pollution are generally met with silence and indifference. Nothing much has been done to halt such unprecedented assault on our natural heritage – the indiscriminate clearing of lands for development and agriculture, unsustainable logging, wildlife trafficking, burning of forests to make way for new crops, and so on. What’s a little smog in the grand scheme of things?
The richer we are and the more we consume, the more self-centred and careless of the lives of others we appear to become. Even if you somehow put aside the direct, physical impacts of rising consumption, it's hard to understand how anyone could imagine that economic growth is a formula for protecting the planet.
So what we seem to see here is the turning of a vicious circle. The more harm we do, the less concerned about it we become. And the more hyper-consumerism destroys the physical fabric of the Earth, the more we try to find ways to take advantage of what’s been entrusted to us for safekeeping and protecting.
And now we pay the price.
BLAME GAME
Indonesia has been recognised as owning one of remaining significant tracts of tropical rainforest in the world. Yet, with the rampant deforestation that occurs annually, Indonesia is also the world’s third largest carbon emitter with 68 per cent of the emission contributed from deforestation.
In 1997/1998, Southeast Asia was unprecedentedly blanketed by thick and smoky haze. The haze trespassed international borders without any restrictions – deliberately triggered by the wild and smouldering fire that comes from biomass burning carried out by farmers to clear vegetation for palm oil, pulp and paper plantations using the slash-and-burn method.
The slash-and-burn conflagration tore through sensitive rainforests where dozens of endangered species live. This drew comparisons to the wildfires in the Amazon basin that have raged in recent weeks which destroyed more than 0.8 million hectares. “That’s how they clear the land, using the cheapest method and conducted by many people,” said Agus Wibowo, a spokesman for Indonesia’s disaster management agency, to the New York Times. The dry season has worsened the situation as well, with fires spinning out of control into protected forested areas.
And more than 20 years on, our own complicit silence and lack of serious action has exacerbated the situation. We’ve grown accustomed to expecting the return of haze every year during Indonesia’s dry season. Central Kalimantan is the worst-affected region, according to Indonesia’s disaster management agency, with more than 455 hotspots detected. Fires rage on and continue to destroy much of the natural habitat of Indonesia’s critically-endangered Bornean orangutans.
Indonesia has recently named and shamed several palm oil companies with Malaysian links as the culprits behind several forest fires in the country. Indonesia's Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the four palm oil companies whose land had been sealed off because fires have been spotted were subsidiaries of Malaysian groups including the world's biggest producer of sustainable palm oil.
The irony? When we come down hard on schools for showcasing the devastating effects of oil palm plantations on orangutan population. We censure the voice of our young people because the truth is so much harder to navigate than painting a pretty picture of sustainable produce – past and current environmental issues be damned. As much as efforts have been taken by the government and the palm oil industry players to ensure the sustainability of palm oil, it’s horrifyingly clear that there remains much more to be done.
TIME TO TAKE ACTION
So let’s get real on how we need to tackle hard issues like the environment. Protect what we have, take stern action on corporations that don’t practice what they preach and increase the penalties for wildlife trade, poaching, illegal logging, open burning and river pollution. Bring those responsible for the forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan to justice and come up with an Act that allows regulators to go after companies causing air pollution through irresponsible burning of forests and peatlands in neighbouring countries.
We want to be known for our sustainable palm oil? Start being serious about the word “sustainability” and ensure that the entire chain of production – be it in this nation or in our neighbouring countries – adheres to the highest standards of sustainability.
Authorities from both sides of the border must decipher the pattern that seems to be repeating itself every year. How many new areas are being burnt down? How many areas have ceased burning? How much does the dry weather contribute to the forest fires that’s been raging on and how much of this is attributed to forest clearing for crops? Why was this not anticipated, knowing that every dry season will bring about a spate of forest fires? Most importantly, why aren’t we bringing the perpetrators to justice?
We can’t afford to be lackadaisical any longer. Open burning isn’t merely Indonesia’s problem. It’s ours. Open burning and forest clearing using the slash-and-burn method occur in this country as well. Have we learnt from our own mistakes?
The question remains whether we’ve put the right management practices in place to prevent this from recurring in our own backyard. As the smog threatens to take away all semblance of normalcy in our cities and suburbs, it’s time for real action to be taken.
We need our forests, our wildlife and our environment to be protected. We need clean air to live. Climate change is real, and we’re not just talking about the weather. The climate is the Earth's most fundamental life support system, one that determines whether we humans are able to live on this planet.
It comprises four components: the atmosphere (the air we breathe); the hydrosphere (the planet's water); the cryosphere (the ice sheets and glaciers) and the biosphere (the planet's plants and animals). By now, our activities had started to modify every single one of these components. Our rivers are polluted, our wildlife dwindling, our forests are logged and now, the very air we breathe is affected!
As we sit cloistered in our homes and offices, schools are closed, the parks are empty, fields and playgrounds are deserted and animals are dying systematically through one of the worst environmental disasters that has ever hit our nation. The fight for conservation MUST have our attention.
DR. WONG SIEW TE
Tropical ecologist and founder of Bornean Conservation Centre, Sabah
The repercussions are greater than we think. The 1997/1998 haze occurrence wiped out the local population of fig wasps in the region. Fig wasps play a crucial role in ecosystems as specialist pollinators. The relationship between figs and fig wasps is arguably the most interdependent pollination symbiosis known to man. Without one another, neither the fig nor fig wasp can complete their life-cycle – a textbook example of co-evolution which is estimated to have been ongoing for at least 60 million years. Figs are keystone species in tropical regions worldwide. Their fruit supports the diets of many mammals and birds. The extinction of fig wasps as a result of the haze was catastrophic, causing the starvation of larger mammals like the sun bears and bearded pigs. This was a well-documented case!
Losing a tiny insect may be insignificant to some, but they’re incredibly important for the world’s ecosystems. Without wasps, the biodiversity of our planet would be greatly impacted. We’re concerned about our difficulties in living under such unhealthy circumstances, and rightfully so. But what about the tiny insects and other wildlife that also need clean air to survive?”
ANTHONY SEBASTIAN
Malaysian sustainability specialist, Sarawak
We in Malaysia and Singapore again suffer through another phase of our neighbour’s development. The question is this: Why can’t development be managed? Nobody is against developing lands, investing in commodities, moving populations and capitals. It’s all about working all the costs into the project. What’s happening now is leaving the costs of land clearing to your neighbours – and that’s not responsible development.
IRSHAD MOBARAK
Naturalist, conservationist and educator, Langkawi
The external environment is a reflection of man's internal condition.
Every animal on the planet has a love for its own offspring and would even put it’s own self in harm’s way to protect it. Yet we see today, individuals and corporations that are willing to set off those fires which have resulted in the smog enveloping many parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and causing irreparable damage to the health of millions of lives. They’re willing to risk the lives of their own children for profit. Can you imagine a parent valuing money over the life of his own child? Man seems to have lost his moral compass, willing to risk the lives of not just nature but also his own kin for the sake of the bottom-line. In any other society this would be called insanity.
GURMIT SINGH
Eco-activist and Chairman of Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia (Cetdem), Kuala Lumpur
Indonesia and Malaysia need to have a strong political commitment to protect the environment but unfortunately, this ranks quite low on their list of priorities. Water pollution, declining forest landscapes, air pollution – these concerns are not reflected in their agenda. We champion palm oil but do not talk about the problems associated with oil palm plantations. We have environmental laws in place but we lack the enforcement to carry them out. Instead, we practice crisis management as and when a major disaster crops up. Once the problem disappears, everything goes back to status quo. The general apathy of people is also alarming. They don’t really care unless the issue threatens their self-interest. Right now, there’s a lot of furore and agencies scrambling for action because of the haze. What happens when the haze disappears? What are we doing for the environment when there’s no haze? The environment needs our urgent attention right now. We need to get serious about environment issues and commit to addressing them.
WONG EE LYNN
Vice-chair, Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Selangor Branch, Coordinator, MNS Selangor Branch Green Living Special Interest Group
Since the ASEAN way of mitigating the transboundary haze through diplomatic and coercive means has not worked, it is time to prosecute the companies responsible for the deforestation and burning. I would encourage class action suits against the companies by the citizens adversely affected by the haze. It may even be timely to lift the corporate veil to prosecute individuals responsible. Citizens cannot wait another 4-5 years to vote in leaders that are committed to protecting the environment. We need to speak up and demand that our elected representatives honour their election promises to protect the environment, and raise the issue of the transboundary haze at Parliamentary level and demand urgent action to prosecute the perpetrators and revoke their operating licences. Citizens of every nation can also demand that their governments require commodity traders to disclose information related to their supply chains and fix the broken system to make it more transparent and accountable. Citizens can also demand that their governments implement measures to create incentives for sustainable agriculture, invest in innovations to make plantations more sustainable, and ensure that farmers and smallholders are paid a fair price for their products so as to reduce their reliance on the slash-and-burn method. At the same time, I emphasise the need for us to walk the talk -- to live according to our environmental values. We should vote with our money, our voices, and our daily actions at every opportunity, by examining and changing what we consume, how much we consume, and how we live our daily lives.