Haze
14 June 2003
Referring to the news report entitled 'Open Burning in Sumatra Causing Haze, says DOE', which was published in The Star on June 13, 2003, I feel very disappointed that the media and the government have not been paying enough attention to the situation. Anybody who ventures out of his or her house would have noticed that the haze has been around for more than four weeks. We do not need the Director-General of the Department of Environment to tell us where this haze comes from because this problem has been repeating itself for years.
I can still remember the year it all began. It was in 1997, and the Asian economic crisis has just begun its domino effect. I can still recall that it was billed as a double tragedy at that time, because of the environmental pollution from neighbouring Indonesia, which added to the burden of the crisis.
At that time, the Department of Environment issued daily reports of the Pollution Index and disseminated advice on how to take care of our health and ways to avoid breathing in corrupted air. Where are the daily reports and the indexes now? The haze has gotten worse as years gone by, and our concern towards this environmental pollution seems to become lesser. Has Malaysians become healthier and stronger and therefore more tolerant of the various respiratory diseases brought about by the haze? Or are we just being nice to our Indonesian neighbour and do not want to sound too offensive by protesting against their government's lack of neighbourly responsibility?
Action should be taken at the ASEAN Ministerial level to stop this annual problem immediately. We cannot condone massive open burning by farmers in Sumatra, even though we know that it is the cheapest method of clearing land for cultivation. If the Indonesians do not have any knowledge of environmental protection, then leaders of the ASEAN nations should provide that knowledge to them. If the Indonesians do not show any concern about their own health or the health of its neighbours, then these leaders should censure the country and impose some sort of penalty on them.
What is the use of maintaining a squeaky clean Singapore and erecting all those glorious monuments in Malaysia, if we are destined to face months of vision blurring air pollution every year? What is the use of promoting Thailand as the Land of Smiles, if all these smiles are hidden beneath a protective mask to avoid breathing in the foul air?
In the same news report, the Director-General was quoted as saying, " According to them (the Indonesian officials), there has not been rain in Sumatra for the last five weeks and the visibility there is about 1 km." What I can interpret from this statement is that the authorities are waiting for rain to fall and the wind direction to change, and hoping that this will clear the haze. I am surprised that in this modern age, we still depend on passive hopes to solve a man-made problem.
It is obvious that due to the lack of political will and the dearth of environmental consciousness amongst the majority of people in ASEAN, the haze continue to make its annual pilgrimage to our shores. Let us hope that after several years down the road, we do not become a region, which is plagued by various respiratory diseases caused by this environmental tragedy.
PELITA NEGARA
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