Smoke engulfs Indonesia and Southeast Asia. And it's partly our fault
Environment — di Rudi Bressa
Several fires have struck Indonesia. Schools closed, flights cancelled and a thick blanket darkens the sky, as forests go up in smoke.
Smoke engulfs Indonesia and Southeast Asia. And it's partly our fault
Several fires have struck Indonesia. Schools closed, flights cancelled and a thick blanket darkens the sky, as forests go up in smoke.
A thick blanket of smoke is enveloping Indonesia, parts of Malaysia and Singapore, as a result of deliberate fires set by farmers using the technique known as "slash and burn".
Dense smoke covers Indonesian cities. Photo by Michael Eko/Getty Images
Schools have been closed in Indonesia and Singapore, and many flights have been cancelled. Meanwhile, images describing the situation in real time are proliferating on Twitter.
Indonesian president Joko Widodo told the BBC that he has done everything possible to contain the problem, for example "sending 3,700 soldiers and nearly 8,000 police officers and 4 water-bomber aircraft to put out the fires". He explained to the journalist that it will take time to resolve the problem of deliberate fires. "You will see the first results soon, and in three years we will solve it."
Meanwhile, CNN reports that: "Indonesian officials have begun evacuating newborns and their mothers from Riau province, as pollution levels from fires in forests and peatlands remain high."
The fires are being set by the local population at the expense of the rainforest, in order to reclaim land for cultivation and grazing. In Indonesia in particular, deforestation has for years been systematically used to make way for plantations of the highly lucrative oil palm.
But these are no ordinary fires. Nasa explains this well, releasing remarkable satellite images. These fires are particularly difficult to extinguish because they are fuelled by the large quantities of peat present in the soil.
The fires as seen from satellite. Photo via Nasa.
Furthermore, scientists confirm, this year will be even more complicated because the presence of El Niño means the dry season will be prolonged, reducing the rainfall that might otherwise have helped extinguish the fires.
Every year, the Ecologist reports, more than 100,000 hectares of peatland are destroyed to make way for plantations: they are drained, converted and then burned, releasing enormous quantities of carbon into the atmosphere — so much so that 85 per cent of Indonesia's emissions come precisely from agricultural land use, such as deforestation and, indeed, these fires.
And this happens also because demand for palm oil is continuously growing. Until the market is regulated — with the entire supply chain certified and monitored, from the plantation to the local population to the finished product — despite the thousands of kilometres that separate us, the responsibility will be partly ours too.