TRANSBOUNDARY smoke has been an ongoing problem for decades, mainly caused by slash-and-burn agricultural techniques for cultivation, at a peak during the drought season.

Peat soil becomes flammable fire spreads quickly. For smallholders and individual farmers, the burning is mainly for food crops.

If the burning is for commodity crops, then most likely big companies are involved. Slash-and-burn is the cheapest practice.

Smoke damages public health and the economy of the affected countries.

According to journal article “Acute Health Impacts of the Southeast Asian Transboundary Smoke Problem – A Review”, existing studies “indicate consistent links between smoke exposure and acute psychological, respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological morbidity and mortality”.

Smoke mainly contains carbon monoxide and particulate matter (especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon/PAH).

The former can be a respiratory irritant and both are linked to cancer. Anywhere between 40,000 and 100,000 additional deaths in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have been due to the adverse health impact of smoke.

Furthermore, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) director of public health and environment Dr Maria Neira people will become more susceptible to any type of respiratory diseases.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has said that Indonesia lost at least US$16.1 billion (RM72.5 billion) due to fires in 2015, which is more than double the cost of rebuilding after the Aceh tsunami.

For Singapore, the smoke in 2015 cost the island republic S$1.83 billion (RM5.89 billion).

For 2019, the World Bank estimated that it cost Indonesia more than US$5.2 billion. The evaluations were from June to October 2019 but the fires continued to occur until November so the actual cost may be higher.

Due to the La Niña climatic conditions that increased rainfall, Indonesia experienced a low number (364) of fire alerts in 2021, compared to the 427 and 8,698 hotspots recorded by satellites for the same months in 2020 and 2019 respectively”.

The same trend is expected to occur in 2022 as SIIA estimates that the risks of smoke in 2022 would be amber (on a scale of green, amber, and red).

Helena Varkkey, an associate professor of Environmental Politics with the Department of International and Strategic Studies at Universiti Malaya, has warned the region to brace for the return of smoke based on three factors.

First, southeast Asia has experienced above average rainfall due to La Niña.

Second, the rise of palm oil prices in 2022 and the increase in the amount of oil palm seeds bought by oil palm growers in 2021 suggested that oil palm planting will surge, meaning more smoke if fire is used to open up new land.

Third, the Indonesian government has enforced policies that lower the risk of forest fires.

In August 2019, the Indonesian government established a permanent moratorium on any further forest clearance permits in primary forest and peatland areas to prevent these areas from being logged or turned into plantations.

Additionally, the central and provincial governments have strengthened fire prevention and suppression over the past three years.

Despite these efforts, there is a need to increase forest monitoring, as well as action against companies using fire.

Even though there has been no transboundary smoke lately, Indonesians still suffer from localised problems.

In Riau, more than 1,000ha of land has been consumed by fire this year.

Last year alone, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported that 85% of the country was affected by drought.

We cannot rely only on weather conditions amid climate change to manage transboundary smoke.

As it is, it is a complex issue requiring concerted co-operation, where the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Smoke Pollution/AATHP (2002) was hampered by Indonesia’s delayed ratification, lack of clarity over the functions of the ASMC, and unco-ordinated assistance efforts.

The agreement establishes the Asean Co-ordinating Centre for Transboundary Smoke Pollution “to facilitate co-operation and co-ordination… in managing the impact of land and/or forest fires in particular smoke pollution…”

Policy recommendations could include the ASMC hosted by the Meteorological Service Singapore. It provides weather and smoke outlook, satellite images, hotspot information, air quality information, and fire danger rating.

Another regional smoke centre is needed for Borneo for monitoring to “close” the geographical and topographical distance in real-time and granular terms.

The deployment of drones to survey and provide surveillance of the historic and potential areas for forest fire should be intensified.

Such a centre would utilise GPS and geographic information as part of an early warning system to indicate potential hotspots, so that preventative and early remedial measures can be taken.

The ASMC software should be linked to smart apps deployed in the private sector, by converting the original co-ordinates into the current geometries, specific software domain codes, customised mapping and incremental area-spotting data.

Asean should expedite the Towards a Fire Early Warning System for Indonesia project, which aims to construct a suite of modelling systems to be used as a new forecasting tool.

For prevention and mitigation, installation of tube wells to pump ground or aquifer water into already-existing trenches should be standard practice.

It is a cost-effective method for the plantation companies. The watered grooves then would act as a fire break.

This should be made compulsory under a revived Cross-Border Pollution Act abandoned by the administration formed from the Sheraton Move. – September 12, 2022.

* Jason Loh and Anis Salwana Abdul Malik work for Emir Research.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.