Indonesian forest fires

For several months in 1997 and 1998, a thick pall of smoke covered much of Southeast Asia. Thousands of forest fires burning simultaneously on the Indonesian islands of Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra, are thought to have destroyed about 8,000 mi² (20,000 km²) of primary forest, or an area about the size of New Jersey. The smoke generated by these fires spread over eight countries and 75 million people, covering an area larger than Europe. Hazy skies and the smell of burning forests could be detected in Hong Kong, nearly 2,000 mi (3,200 km) away. The air quality in Singapore and the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, just across the Strait of Malacca from Indonesia, was worse than any industrial region in the world. In towns such as Palembang, Sumatra, and Banjarmasin, Kalimantan, in the heart of the fires, the air pollution index frequently passed 800, twice the level classified in the United States as an air quality emergency, hazardous to human health. Automobiles had to drive with their headlights on, even at noon. People groped along smoke-darkened streets unable to see or breathe normally.

At least 20 million people in Indonesia and Malaysia were treated for illnesses such as bronchitis , eye irritation, asthma , emphysema , and cardiovascular diseases. It's thought that three times that many who couldn't afford medical care went uncounted. The number of extra deaths from this months-long episode is unknown, but it seems likely to have been hundreds of thousands, mostly elderly or very young children. Unable to see through the thick haze , several boats collided in the busy Straits of Malacca, and a plane crashed on Sumatra, killing 234 passengers. Cancelled airline flights, aborted tourist plans, lost workdays, medical bills, and ruined crops are estimated to have cost countries in the afflicted area several billion dollars. Wildlife suffered as well. In addition to the loss of habitat destroyed by fires, breathing the noxious smoke was as hard on wild species as it was on people. At the Pangkalanbuun Conservation Reserve, weak and disoriented orangutans were found suffering from respiratory diseases much like those of humans.

Geographical isolation on the 16,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago has allowed evolution of the world's richest collection of biodiversity . Indonesia has the second largest expanse of tropical forest and the highest number of endemic species anywhere. This makes destruction of Indonesian plants, animals, and their habitat of special concern. The dry season in tropical Southeast Asia has probably always been a time of burning vegetation and smoky skies. Farmers practicing traditional slash and burn agriculture start fires each year to prepare for the next growing season. Because they generally burn only a hectare or two at a time, however, these shifting cultivators often help preserve plant and animal species by opening up space for early successional forest stages. Globalization and the advent of large, commercial plantations, however, have changed agricultural dynamics. There is now economic incentive for clearing huge tracts of forestland to plant oil palms, export foods such as pineapples and sugar cane, and fast-growing eucalyptus trees. Fire is viewed as the only practical way remove biomass and convert wild forest to into domesticated land. While it can cost the equivalent of $200 to clear a hectare of forest with chainsaws and bulldozers, dropping a lighted match into dry underbrush is essentially free.

In 1997 to 1998, the Indonesian forest was unusually dry. A powerful El Niño/Southern Oscillation weather pattern caused the most severe droughts in 50 years. Forests that ordinarily stay green and moist even during the rainless season became tinder dry. Lightning strikes are thought to have started many forest fires, but many people took advantage of the drought for their own purposes. Although the government blamed traditional farmers for setting most of the fires, environmental groups claimed that the biggest fires were caused by large agribusiness conglomerates with close ties to the government and military. Some of these fires were set to cover up evidence of illegal logging operations. Others were started to make way for huge oil-palm plantations and fast-growing pulpwood trees,

Neil Byron of the Center for International Forestry Research was quoted as saying that "fire crews would go into an area and put out the fire, then come back four days later and find it burning again, and a guy standing there with a petrol can." According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, 37 plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan were responsible for a vast majority of the forest burned on those islands. The plantation owners were politically connected to the ruling elite, however, and none of them was ever punished for violation of national forest protection laws. Indonesia has some of the strongest land-use management laws of any country in the world, but these laws are rarely enforced. In theory, more than 80% of its land is in some form of protected status, either set aside as national parks or classified as selective logging reserves where only a few trees per hectare can be cut. The government claims to have an ambitious reforestation program that replants nearly 1.6 million acres (1 million hectares) of harvested forest annually, but when four times that amount is burned in a single year, there's not much to be done but turn it over to plantation owners for use as agricultural land.

Aquatic life, also, is damaged by these forest fires. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have the richest coral reef complexes in the world. More than 150 species of coral live in this area, compared with only about 30 species in the Caribbean. The clear water and fantastic biodiversity of Indonesia's reefs have made it an ultimate destination for scuba divers and snorkelers from around the world. Unfortunately, soil eroded from burned forests clouds coastal waters and smothers reefs.

Perhaps one of the worst effects of large tropical forest fires is that they may tend to be self-reinforcing. Moist tropical forests store huge amounts of carbon in their standing biomass. When this carbon is converted into CO₂ by fire and released to the atmosphere , it acts as a greenhouse gas to trap heat and cause global warming. All the effects of human-caused global climate change are still unknown, but we stronger climatic events such as severe droughts may make further fires even more likely. Alarmed by the magnitude of the Southeast Asia fires and the potential they represent for biodiversity losses and global climate change, world leaders have proposed plans for international intervention to prevent A recurrence. Fears about imposing on national sovereignty, however, have made it difficult to come up with a plan for how to cope with this growing threat.

[William P. Cunningham Ph.D. ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Glover, David, and Timothy Jessup, eds. Indonesia's Fires and Haze: The Cost of Catastrophe. Singapore: International Development Research Centre, 2002.

PERIODICALS

Aditama, Tjandra Yoga. "Impact of Haze from Forest Fire to Respiratory Health: Indonesian Experience." Respirology (2000): 169–174.

Chan, C. Y., et al. "Effects of 1997 Indonesian forest fires on tropospheric ozone enhancement, radiative forcing, and temperature change over the Hong Kong region" Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres 106 (2001):14875-14885.

Davies, S. J. and L. Unam. "Smoke-haze from the 1997 Indonesian forest fires: effects on pollution levels, local climate, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and tree photosynthesis." Forest Ecology & Management 124(1999):137-144.

Murty, T. S., D. Scott, and W. Baird. "The 1997 El Niño, Indonesian Forest Fires and the Malaysian Smoke Problem: A Deadly Combination of Natural and Man-Made Hazard" Natural Hazards 21 (2000): 131–144. Tay, Simon. "Southeast Asian Fires: The Challenge Over Sustainable Environmental Law and Sustainable Development." Peace Research Abstracts 38 (2001): 603–751.