A BURNING ISSUE: The Air Pollutant Index and our tempers have shot up
AS helicopters dropped water bombs on burning forests in Sumatra last week, Indonesia took a shot at Singapore, saying the island state was acting like a child.
But it has become a burning issue in Malaysia, too, as the Air Pollutant Index (API) went up, along with our stress levels. Tempers and temperatures also rose, leaving the Malaysian psyche scorched.
The never-ending war on haze has left us in a daze with Asean solidarity seemingly less solid when it comes to transboundary pollution.
Smog gets in your eyes when somebody burns some forests across the Straits of Malacca and we end up choking in dire straits. Blown by southwesterly winds, soot from another country ended up in the homes of Malaysians, making them smell burnt wood.
My throat is parched, my lungs dry and my eyes sore as I sweated over this column over the weekend.
Our fishermen can’t go out to sea, our children can’t go to schools, and our hearts go out to asthma patients and others with respiratory problems. And also to the labourers who slog amid the haze and dust.
Life becomes a worrisome existence in one big kuali — the quality of living going down. The dropping air quality index tells us so in these steamy days.
Indonesia, which had apologised to Malaysia in the past for the haze problem, was unapologetic this time.
It claimed Singaporean and Malaysian oil palm companies were the ones who had started the fires in Indonesia.
Now, things have got hazier. Amid that smokescreen, it is hard to identify the culprits.
But whether they be Singaporean and Malaysian companies, Indonesia must treat them like environmental terrorists and go after them.
However, the fact remains that the haze nightmare has become an almost annual happening, and this shows that there is very little monitoring and prevention of open burning in Indonesia.
This man-made disaster is delicate and complicated. The farmers from across the sea bear Malaysians no ill will.
They need to make a living, yet ill winds carry their burnt nightmarish stuff to the peninsula.
According to an Indonesian report, the slash-and-burn technique, which is the cheapest land-clearing method, is also used by employees of foreign oil palm investors.
Environmentalists, who are hot under the collar, are demanding a permanent solution to the annual health catastrophe.
They are putting the heat on Indonesia to take timely and concrete action against slash-and-burn farming.
Rain or divine and neighbourly help are just not enough to battle the seasonal haze. Indonesia must take decisive and quick measures against the perpetrators.
But political will might wilt when it makes more economical sense to allow slash-and-burn farming, which is fast, cheap, efficient and requires little labour.
For the obvious reason, Indonesia is the only Asean nation that has not ratified the Asean Agreement on Trans-boundary Haze Pollution, which was signed in 2002 between all the other Asean nations to reduce haze pollution in Southeast Asia.
To encourage Indonesia to crack down on open burning, Malaysia and Singapore should plant the seeds of goodwill with joint trade ventures and economic deals.
Malaysia has always been a good neighbour to Indonesia, and we are ever ready to help its people.
We did so when the tsunami struck, we sent relief teams, we sent food and we sent money. We also sent firemen to overcome the haze in 1997.
We hope the Indonesian embassy here and the many thousands of Indonesian workers in Malaysia can tell their people about the misery that the haze brings to us.
The people of these two nations share a strong bond, with economies and cultures interlinked.
And they, now, breathe the same air, too, at API 50 or API 500.
I picture Louis Armstrong singing What A Wonderful World as Malaysian children grow up healthy under the blue skies, breathing clean air and not breathless on foul air.
I wish to see Malaysian children walking barefoot in a dewy garden on a cool misty morning; with the tingling scent of fresh grass in their nostrils, amid the delightful chirping of birds in the trees, the strident crow of cockerels heralding the new day.
But at the moment, we don’t really have a say in having our own clean world, our own 0-50 API world.
Much of it depends on what happens beyond our shores, on what Indonesia can do.
What we can do now on our part is stay indoors, drink a lot of water and offer to help Indonesia put out their fires.
Maybe, there is hope.
The Indonesian government vowed on Friday to take action.
The dust of the haze may finally settle.
Smoke billowing from fires in Riau province, Indonesia. The fires have been the cause of haze in Singapore and Malaysia. AP pic
Smog gets in our eyes
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