JAKARTA — Indonesia is battling massive wildfires, with some of the blazes continuing to burn for weeks as toxic smoke spreads across the region.Smoke and haze from the Indonesian wildfires have also been reported across large swathes of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.Millions of people have been exposed to the smog, which in some areas has fuelled “acutely unhealthy” pollution more than 15 times the World Health Organization’s recommended level. Many of the ongoing fires have been burning across Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo since mid-July – underpinned by a so-called Super El Niño that is exacerbating drought conditions.Between July and August, Indonesia’s Health Ministry recorded over 50,000 cases of respiratory infections linked to land and forest fires.More than 12,000 of those cases are among children under the age of five.Some 1,300 kilometres away, in the Philippine island province of Palawan, residents reported similar symptoms, including itchy eyes, nose and throat.”We are now experiencing mild headaches,” said Dr Precious Bañas-Melad. “My cousin who isn’t allergic to anything started developing allergies. My husband is the first one who had itchy eyes and throat.”Malaysia, meanwhile, has reported rising cases of asthma and conjunctivitis amid worsening air quality nationwide as smoke continues to drift across the border.Indonesia’s forest and peatland fires are not a new phenomenon. Experts say the crisis is rooted in decades of land-use change, dating back to the Suharto era, when vast areas of rainforest and peatland in Kalimantan were opened for logging, plantations and large-scale development projects.Today, large-scale fires are often associated with the expansion of industrial plantations and other commercial land use. Environmental groups, researchers, and government investigations have repeatedly alleged that some companies use fire as a cheap and effective way to clear vast areas of land.Some point out that while drought and El Niño conditions help fires spread, the severity of the haze is also linked to human activity. Drained peatlands, industrial timber estates and oil palm plantations can leave landscapes more vulnerable to burning, with fires often recurring in the same areas.Unlike traditional practices, which are small-scale, community-managed, and closely monitored, fires linked to large-scale land development can be far more difficult to control and can cause environmental and public health impacts on a much larger scale.What makes Indonesian Borneo’s wildfires particularly worrying is that they are burning through one of the world’s largest tropical peatland ecosystems.Under normal conditions, these peatlands serve as gigantic carbon reservoirs. But under abnormal conditions, such as those currently hitting the region, they can become carbon “bombs”.”Peatlands are incredibly effective carbon stores because their waterlogged conditions slow decomposition, allowing carbon to accumulate underground for thousands of years,” explains Dr Nisa Novita, a peatland researcher at Indonesian conservation NGO Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara.”But this also means they can become a ‘carbon bomb’ when they are drained or burned, because that carbon can be rapidly released into the atmosphere.”Others have warned that as the current Super El Niño continues to escalate over the coming months, the fires could significantly worsen.Last year, without El Niño, forest fires in Indonesia torched a 359,000-hectare area, says Professor Bambang Hero Saharjo, a forest fire forensics expert from Institut Pertanian Bogor University.Citing research reports, Prof Bambang said this year’s El Niño could burn an area as large as 11 million hectares – putting it on par with one of Indonesia’s worst wildfire seasons, which happened from 1997 to 1998.Earlier this week, Indonesia’s forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni told reporters that the battle to extinguish the current wildfires was entering a critical phase.”Our problems are not over. September is the peak of El Niño,” he said earlier this week. “September is the main fight for us.”
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