CLEAR SKIES but for How Long?

Clear skies came just in time for the start of Ramadan. Said trishaw driver Ujang, 45: “Thank God, the good weather has improved my takings, and made up for losses during the haze.”

But, amid the bustle in the streets, there are worries that any prolonged period of dry weather, combined with the pullout of the heavy relief presence, may see open burning resume and take residents back to square one, disrupting their health and livelihood.

The national disaster authorities lifted emergency status last Thursday, 20 days after it was declared, but they will remain on the lookout for any recurrence until the dry season ends in October.

Four helicopters and an airplane for water-bombing and cloud-seeding will remain in Riau in case fires flare up again, the National Disaster Management Agency said.

On Sunday, Marines left Dumai for Jakarta in a gradual pullout of troops and police deployed to put out and investigate forest fires that sent pollution levels to record highs in Singapore and peninsular Malaysia. 

Residents forced to relocate because of the haze have also returned home. Dumai resident Wan Umar Dani, 26, said he took his wife and their three-year-old son to neighbouring West Sumatra province for almost a month as he was concerned for their health. “If it happens again, I will move again,” he said, urging the authorities to keep a closer watch on plantations so the haze does not recur. “They have to act tough on landowners found to have carried out burning.”

So far, only one landowner has been named a suspect.

Indonesian police spokesman Ronny Sompie told reporters last week that PT Adei Plantation and Industry, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK), allegedly illegally burned land to clear it for cultivation.

Another 24 individuals have been identified as having started fires in Riau.

The KLK took out an ad in the Jakarta Post in response to a report on its involvement. It cited a local forestry official saying the fire was started in an area the company had set aside for conservation, but which the community near its estates was trying to clear for cultivation. Adei had in fact taken quick action to douse the fire, it said.

Other pulp and paper companies cited as culpable by NGOs have issued similar rebuttals.

Meanwhile, the toll is just starting to be tallied. The Riau Health Agency said at least 10,000 people have developed acute respiratory infections from the haze, more than half of them children under five years of age.

In a report on Indonesia's economy this month, the World Bank estimates the total cost and risk to the overall economic outlook from the haze is “likely to be in the billions of dollars”, from resources deployed to put out fires to degradation of forest and land assets. 

But, as many in Riau note, the haze has become a persistent problem that is hard to pre-empt. Clearing land is also a source of income for many and, with each dry season, some of the land will inevitably be burnt.