Second article on SE Asia haze.
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
To: sangkancil@malaysia.net
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 04:45:15
Subject: [sangkancil] Fog blanket threatens world climate (fwd)
From: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai)
Reply-to: pillai@mgg.pc.my (M.G.G. Pillai)
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From: tapol@gn.apc.org
Date: 29 Sep 97
Originally To: Recipients of indonesia-act <indonesia-act@igc.org>
From: tapol (Tapol)
Poison fog blanket threatens world climate
John Vidal
The Guardian, 27 September 1997
THE scale of one of the world's greatest manmade environmental catastrophes
was becoming clear last night as poisonous fog blanketed up to 70 million
people in six south-east Asian countries and scientists warned of long-term
climate disruption.
Many hundreds of deaths had been reported throughout the 100 square mile
area, even before an Indonesian airliner crashed in the smog yesterday
claiming 234 lives. In the past few days, the death toll from hunger in the
Indonesian province of Irian Jaya alone has risen to more than 275.
Satellite pictures showing that the uncontrollable fires have spread to one
million hectares of deep peatlands, which may burn underground for decades,
have rebounded round the world.
With visibility down to fewer than 20 yards in many cities and cars having
to use their headlights in the middle of the day, Indonesia has declared a
national disaster and Malaysia a state of emergency.
Although some rain fell yesterday in the region, dense smog has reached
Thailand and the southern Philippines. Hoteliers as far north as the Thai
resort island of Phuket, 900 miles from the nearest fires in south Sumatra
or Kalimantan, say they are now enveloped by grimy smog.
Antara, the official Indonesian news agency, reported that fires in Irian
Jaya have swept into Papua New Guinea and burnt down a camp inhabited by 600
Indonesian political refugees.
President Suharto of Indonesia yesterday ordered four million civil servants
to join nearly 10,000 people already fighting the fires, although it is
accepted that only heavy monsoon rains will eventually extinguish them.
These are two months late and the World Meteorological Organisation has
warned that the drought affecting the whole region may continue until next
year.
An international relief effort is getting under way. The World Bank
yesterday offered emergency help as Japan, France, Finland, Germany and
Canada sent teams of pollution experts and firefighters. The Indonesian air
force and navy are preparing to help with cloud-seeding efforts to induce
rain. The United Nations is sending an emergency evaluation team and 150,000
face masks for children.
The price of surgical masks has soared everywhere in the region. There are
plans to import four million from the United States to distribute to people
in central Sumatra.
The health emergency is growing. Although the winds changed last night
temporarily relieving some areas, 15,000 Malaysians and 45,000 Indonesians,
most of them children and elderly, have been treated for smog-related
illnesses.
Air pollution was yesterday double the legal safety limit in nine Thai
provinces. The smog has triggered health alarms in Singapore and Brunei. The
smog is adding to the heavy air pollution that already exists in most of the
region's cities.
Missionaries yesterday claimed that many deaths could have been avoided if
fires in the area had not been allowed to burn out of control, preventing
aircraft from bringing in relief.
The long-term ecological implications are not well understood. In Geneva,
the director-general of the Swissbased World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF),
Claude Martin, described the situation as a "planetary disaster".
Scientists warned that the effect on long-term global warming and immediate
weather patterns throughout the world could be immense. The effect of the
fire, especially if it takes hold in the peatlands, is to release a massive
amount of carbon dioxide which causes global warming," said Richard Lindsay
of the University of East London. "The long-term threat to climate worldwide
and health is significant."
The lowland tropical rain forests of Sumatra and Kalimantan are among the
most biologically rich ecosystems on earth. The potential loss to science of
whole species would be felt worldwide, while the haze would hit the health
and economies of the whole region, he said.
Much of the Indonesian forests lie on up to 10-20 metres of now burning
peat. Clay Rubec, of the International Mire [Peatlands] Organisation, which
advises governments on peatland fires said yesterday that more than one
million hectares of peat swamp forest could be destroyed within six months.
Peat fires burn deep underground for years and are almost impossible to
control on a large scale. "This fire is a greater threat to human health
than the Kuwaiti oil fires and harder to put out."
Elephants, tigers and deer were potentially at risk but the effects would be
felt throughout the food chain of the region because trees and plants would
not pollinate.
The air pollution could further complicate economic problems in the region,
analysts warned yesterday. A whole range of industries from tourism to
electronics and palm oil production, could be affected, said Liew Yin Sze,
head of research at the Singapore investment house J M Sassoon.
Mr Liew said the electronics industry, a crucial driver of the economies of
Singapore and Malaysia, could also be hit. "You might see increased costs in
clean-room industries like semiconductors," he said.
An agricultural analyst with another investment house in Singapore said
world palm oil prices could rise in 1998-99.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has blamed 176 plantation companies for
causing the fires, but has taken action against only one.
British environment groups yesterday accused western consumers of
contributing to the fires because of the consumption of tropical hardwoods.
Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said: "The disaster unfolding is
inextricably linked to the behaviour of countries in the developed world who
consume vast quantities of wood." Last year the UK imported 201,650 cubic
metres of tropical timbers from Indonesia. More than 1 million hectares of
Indonesian forest are lost to logging every year.
Meanwhile, everyday life is severely affected. 'It isn't simply the zest and
joy of life that's denied by the sustained smog," said one mother in Kuala
Lumpur. "It weakens you from all frontiers - lack of sunlight, eyes smarting
all the time, skin itch, and the choking like it is a banshee from purgatory."
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