Heat from Indonesia Fires to Be Felt at Climate Meeting

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

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

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.

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