Heat from Indonesia Fires to Be Felt at Climate Meeting
11/28/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Following is a good recap of the Indonesian fire crisis, which
indicates the milestone this has been for the fledgling Asian
environmental movement. While the fires have dwindled recently, the
conditions, which spawned the infernos, remain; and little has been
done to systematically address the widespread ecological decline of
the region. Certainly the damaged ecology and declining economic
fortunes of "miracle" Asian economies are intertwined. Economic
growth based upon wholesale resource liquidation and polluting
industries is illusory, and inevitably a bust follows the boom. The
myth that economic growth based on over-exploitation of ecosystems can
be maintained must be shattered once and for all. Please, no more
miracle economies.
g.b.
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Title: Heat from Indonesian fires to be felt at climate meet
Source: Agence France-Presse
Status: Copyright 1997, contact source for reprint permissions
Date: November 28, 1997
Byline: Bernard Estrade
JAKARTA, Nov 28 (AFP) - The widespread fires in Indonesia which cast a
pall of smoke over most of southeast Asia for months, loom heavy in
the minds of southeast Asian delegates heading to the World Conference
on the Climate in Japan next week.
"The fires have for the first time, provided the opportunity for Asian
states to see that there is an immediate price to pay, now and not
later, for not respecting the environment," an analyst with an
international financial institution said.
The fires, mostly blamed on the indiscriminate use of slash and burn
methods to clear land for fields, plantations and settlement, sent up
thick smoke in May and the sky in several countries was still covered
with a thin haze in November.
The haze has caused serious health alerts in the region and led to
disruption as well as accidents in air, land and water traffic.
At least 17 Indonesians have died from haze-related ailments while
millions of others have had their health affected, officials say.
The fires haved also affected the climate in several ways.
In the immediate aftermath, the fires in Indonesian forest, fields and
peat and coal lands, released millions of cubic metres of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to a drop in local temperatures.
In the longer term will come the effects from the dwindling forest
surface following the fires.
Forests, including primary rain forests, absorb carbon dioxide and
release much needed oxygen into the air.
Indonesia has 113 million hectares (279.1 million acres) of rain
forests, including 49 million hectares (121 million acres) in
protected areas.
The president of the World Wild Life Fund for Nature, Sayed Babar Ali,
has labeled the forest and ground fires in Indonesia "an international
catastrophe."
A former chairman of Indonesia's leading environmental watchdog Walhi,
George Aditjondro, has called it "the worst ecological disaster to
have hit Asia since the Vietnam War."
The severe drought experienced by the country this year, partly due to
the El Nino freak weather pattern, also aggravated the fires and the
haze.
While officials have said only around 300,000 hectares of forest and
ground have burned this year, Walhi's estimate put it to around 1.7
million hectares (4.2 million acres.)
Indonesian Environment Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja has said
"hundreds" of years would be needed to restore the conditions of the
burned forests.
President Suharto has declared the fires a national disaster and even
made an uprecedented series of apologies to Indonesia's affected
neighbours.
The haze has spread as far as Sri Lanka to the east, southern Thailand
to the north, the Philippines to the east and Darwin on the northern
coast of Australia to the south.
Malaysia and Singapore, along with Indonesia, declared health
emergencies after air pollution health safety standards were surpassed
by the smoke haze and they have also seen tourism drop.
The thick acrid smoke has reduced visibility to such dangerous levels
that it is believed to have been behind several boat and air accidents
that have claimed more than 300 lives.
The climate change meeting that will open in Kyoto, Japan, on Monday
will attract representatives from 166 countries which will try to
hammer out an accord on reducing greenhouse gas emissions said to be
responsible for global warming.