As Indonesian forest fires again smother Southeast Asia in smog, the annual cacophony over culpability is rising in volume.
But growing public anger and stinging intergovernmental jibes aren’t likely to produce an immediate solution, experts say, because the economic and political forces underpinning the widespread use of fire to clear land in Indonesia are difficult to turn back.
Haze pollution has been a recurring problem in Southeast Asia since the 1980s. It is typically caused by seasonal burning of forests and peat-land to make way for palm oil plantations and other agriculture. Academics and environmentalists say major palm oil producers and their associates are likely behind most of the fires, despite their denials and the insistence of many that they follow a “zero burn” policy.
Agribusiness companies—including Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian companies—may be behind up to 80% of the Indonesian forest fires detected in recent years, said Helena Varkkey, a haze-pollution researcher at Malaysia’s University of Malaya. “Simply put, it is much cheaper for these companies to burn to clear land, compared to mechanical methods,” she said.
Singaporean Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam noted during a news conference Saturday that the fires were “not an act of nature.”
“These are actions by companies for commercial profit,” Mr. Shanmugam said. “We will offer no succor or refuge if the actions of the companies have indeed been illegal in Indonesia and impacted on Singapore.”
These companies’ strong ties to national and local Indonesian officials within the country’s complicated patronage network make it difficult to stop them and their subcontractors, analysts say.
Political connections allow companies to bypass inefficient local bureaucracies to win land concessions and, in many cases, escape punishment for flouting laws banning the use of fire for commercial land-clearing, said J. Jackson Ewing, an environmental-security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
Singapore officials have pressed Indonesian authorities to name the offending companies and offered satellite imagery to assist investigations. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has pledged action against any Singapore-based companies definitively linked to the fires.
Indonesia has promised action and on Friday said it was investigating eight unnamed companies. But “political will in Jakarta doesn’t mean enforcement at the local level will improve,” especially in light of Indonesia’s decentralized system of government, which gives local authorities considerable power, Mr. Ewing said.
At the diplomatic level, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has also failed to make headway, despite pledging to take a tougher stand after the 1997 haze-pollution crisis–the region’s worst–caused estimated economic losses of more than $4 billion.
The regional bloc has a non-interventionist tradition, and members have shied from taking punitive action against Jakarta for perceived failings in curbing the annual burning. Indonesia has so far failed to ratify the 2002 Asean agreement on tackling cross-border haze pollution, a treaty criticized for its weak enforcement mechanisms.
Singapore doesn’t expect to Indonesia to ratify the agreement soon. “The Indonesian parliament has taken the view that this treaty is not in the interests of Indonesia,” Mr. Shanmugam said Saturday.
“Depending on what steps are taken [by Asean] … we will have to decide at what other [forums] this has to be discussed…. There are limits to what regional bodies can do,” given issues of national sovereignty, he said.
University of Malaya’s Ms. Varkkey said it would be difficult for Asean to reach a consensus on the problem. “We have Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, which to a different degree are both victims and culprits, trying to protect their economic interests,” she said.
The problem has to be tackled in other ways, analysts say. One approach is to help agricultural companies in Indonesia develop profitable and sustainable agricultural practices that don’t involve burning. Another is to break up the links between agribusiness and government.
“The only foreseeable means to break this patronage culture would be market forces,” Ms. Varkkey said. If consumers and civil society are able to “make a serious impact on the sales of palm oil from this region, this might force the companies to at least take anti-burning laws more seriously.”
“If a strong market for sustainable palm oil can be created, companies may see that it is more profitable to spend a little more to comply with all regulations,” she added.
The severity of the current smog crisis, which has stirred memories of the 1997 crisis, could also compel governments to take more drastic steps, given the higher amount of public scrutiny with the advent of social media and growing Internet access, Mr. Ewing said.
But others are less optimistic. “Countries in the region may get a little vocal during the haze season, but when the skies clear, often nothing more is said or done about the issue,” Ms. Varkkey said.
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