Hazy days

Millions of dollars lost every year directly and indirectly from the Indonesian haze not to mention the health cost amongst their own citizen and neighbouring countries. Yet here we are suffering from another bout of hazy season. Who are to blame for this ecological disaster? Some say it’s the big palm oil estate owners whose to blame. Truth is, subsistence farming is the main culprit. Big plantation companies do not slash and burn. Problems are with the enclaves. It is tough to control them from burning during dry seasons. A palm oil tree takes 7 years to grow and could be productive for 15 to 20 years. It make no sense for these plantation owners to burn down the trees every 2 or 3 years.

It is a complicated combination of need (of the small time farmers) and tradition. Perhaps the authority should take a more proactive role? To those irresponsible farmers burning their crops every other year, is it worth it with the damage that you have done to millions of lives? I’m pretty sure they know and are aware of the calamity their action brought but they did it anyway. The haze reached it’s peak worst today with hundreds of schools closed across the country, my kids and the school that I worked at included. You can smell the acrid burning odour outside the house. While the kids and teachers didn’t have to go to school at all, the rest of the non-teaching staff have to work as usual, haze or not. Yes, they gave us an option to work from home if we have significant health problems or unexpected parental obligation. Many still come to work anyway because they have tonnes of work to do.

You can see in the media pictures of Indonesian’s President Jokowi walking around ground zero, witnessing first hand the devastation that the fire and haze brought and how he laments about the folks who caused it. I believe those were merely lip service. I can almost guarantee you we’ll be suffering from the same hazy predicament next year. It will take a paradigm shift and significant education to make those farmers stop burning their land.