Haze – the blame game

THE open blame game over haze between ministers of two good neighbouring countries is not healthy. Thank goodness, it stopped by midweek, but like fire in the peat swamp, it is still smouldering.

This column attempts to suggest means by which to douse it, but it is up to both countries to take action without hurting each other’s feelings. Sore eyes only. In my opinion, the two governments – Indonesia and Malaysia – are not entirely to be blamed for the haze. If there is someone to blame at all, it’s the plantation companies, tree planting companies (in Indonesia) and, to some extent, the rice farmers and smallholders. However, the smoke produced by fires from these farms is negligible; rice farmers have been burning grass or secondary bush since time immemorial. Before the days of large scale plantations, choking smog was never a problem in this part of the world.

And who own these companies? Some of the big ones operating in parts of Riau, Sumatra, and West Kalimantan are Malaysia-registered.

Plantation companies prefer heavily forested land; from which they harvest valuable logs. Top priority. There’s good money in those logs. Then comes field development itself, if at all. Cases of transfers of leaseholds after the valuable timber has been fully extracted are not unknown.

In this part of Asia, the land is used for the planting of oil palm; the product is in great demand by many countries. It is a big business and an important earner of the foreign exchange for the country which produces that edible oil.

Smoke begins with poor choice of contractors 

A plantation company normally tenders out the initial work of under-brushing, felling, and burning to contractors. Contractors are vital in plantation development. There are not many good contractors around. Choose the fly-by-night contractors, and you will be in deep trouble.

A good contractor would adhere strictly to the practices of good husbandry: before burning, a fire belt is created around blocks of felled jungle; burning is done block by block and properly supervised by company field managers. All fires must be extinguished fully before the day is done to prevent a possible flare up during the night and an encroachment upon the next jungle or neighbours’ property or streams or fruit groves. Timber is cut into short logs, stacked up nicely, and burnt slowly to produce less smoke. Use this pandok system – the traditional method of the shifting cultivators.

But this method of burning is very expensive where large areas of land are to be cleared of the jungle. It involves a lot of workers; building fire belts takes time. Contractors in a hurry to make money have often ignored this method, and used the cheapest and fastest. To hell with the environment!

Seventeen years ago, I was visiting a German-funded project: teaching the locals at Bonti, a Dayak village in Kabupaten Sanggau, West Kalimantan, how to preserve forests by selective felling of trees.

On the way to Bonti, I witnessed plantation contractors burning jungle with the use of kerosene or benzene for an oil palm plantation, owned by a subsidiary of a big Malaysian company.

Selarai 

In Iban, this method of burning is called selarai, an act that’s frowned upon by the community. Only lazy farmers would do such a daft thing.

It is the selarai method which causes a big fire and produces a lot of smoke. Kerosene or benzene are excellent burning agents; they produce thick black smoke. Large areas of jungle will burn through this method even during a light rain. In a peat swamp area, the fire will burn for days and weeks.

Deal with the companies 

Now that we have pointed fingers at company contractors as the real culprits responsible for the production of toxic haze, we expect each country to seriously deal with those companies or their agents according to the laws of the respective country.

However, not every company is a culprit; many are innocent, complying with the standards of good husbandry.

Each government has its own laws to govern the behaviour of the plantation companies. There already exists an agreement concerning haze. For example, the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. Malaysia ratified it in 2002, followed by Indonesia in 2014. Give it more teeth.

There’s more to do at the ground level, indoors, and out of sight and hearing of the prying media. A lot of problems can be solved through quiet discussion between friends. Remember, there are people with vested interests whom each country wishes to protect. These are investors; this group is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs. In both countries there are many geese and many golden eggs.

Ministers from both countries must not appear to be championing the cause of the companies only. They should be talking about sending firemen and equipment to extinguish the fires instead of quarrelling openly, unnecessarily dragging the Prime Minister and the President into the fray. Diplomats from both nations would do the job just as well.

Factor in El Nino  

Blame the El Nino too for the prolonged dry season in this region. This is the common enemy. Wait for the end of October when the haze will disappear into thin air.

Meanwhile, wear face masks when you are out of the house.

In Indonesia, hundreds of people and plenty of equipment are involved in dousing the fires there. They have even resorted to prayers for rain. In Sarawak, we do cloud seeding but first there must be clouds before the seeding.

Also, in the meantime, there is something else worth looking at: the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act of Singapore, 2014. This law allows Singaporean authorities to take action against the companies registered in the Republic or owned by Singaporeans and proven to have contributed to haze in the city.

This law may be difficult to apply to companies operating outside the City State but at least an effort has been made to partially address the problem of haze. What about copycatting, mutatis mutandis, this model? This is what the ministers should be talking about rather than spending time accusing each other for the haze as if it were an Indonesian state weapon of mass destruction that has been unleashed to smoke out Malaysians and Singaporeans.

In the end, we come down to what is the problem on many levels: application of laws, compliance with international agreements, and meting out penalties, without fear or favour.

And this is the job of each government.

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