Big business to blame for haze

Official figures show more than half of Indonesia’s rainforest, the third-largest swath in the world, has been felled in a few years and permission has been granted to convert up to 70 per cent of what remains into palm or acacia plantations.
Millions of hectares are nominally protected, but the forest is fragmented, national parks are surrounded by plantations, illegal loggers work with impunity and corruption is rife in government.
This is the fastest, most comprehensive transformation of an entire landscape that has ever taken place anywhere in the world, including the Amazon. If it continues at this rate, all that will be left in 20 years is a few fragmented areas of natural forest surrounded by huge manmade plantations.
Originally Singapore complained very loudly to the Indonesian authorities until they, in retaliation, published a list of the companies burning the rainforest – yes, big business, not small-scale farmers – and some of them are Singaporean-owned.
Sebastian Woods
Chiang Mai