Toxic wildfire haze spreads across South East Asia as 'super' El Niño intensifies

Toxic wildfire haze spreads across South East Asia as 'super' El Niño intensifies

As wildfires intensify across large parts of Indonesia, a harmful haze is blanketing the region.

A layer of toxic haze is covering parts of Indonesia and drifting into Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, as fires that have been burning for weeks continue to rage.

Millions of people across wide areas of South East Asia have been exposed to the smog, which in some places has driven pollution to "acutely unhealthy" levels more than 15 times above the World Health Organization's recommended limit.

Many of the fires have been burning across Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo since mid-July, driven by a so-called Super El Niño that is worsening drought conditions.

From July to August, Indonesia's Health Ministry recorded more than 50,000 cases of respiratory infections connected to land and forest fires.

More than 12,000 of those cases involved children under five.

Rizma Nur Fatimah, a 19-year-old teaching assistant at a school in Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, told the BBC that the smog in her classroom had become so dense "you couldn't even see your own feet".

"Even inside the house, with everything closed, the haze still got in," she said. "We've been living with this since I was born. It's the same every year, so we've almost become resigned to it. But this year is worse."

Misbah, a 23-year-old mother from nearby Pengayuan village, said her three-year-old daughter developed "a cough, a sore throat and a runny nose" during the haze.

About 1,300 kilometres away, in the Philippine island province of Palawan, residents reported similar problems, 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 increasing cases of asthma and conjunctivitis as air quality worsens nationwide and smoke continues to drift across the border.

Indonesia's forest and peatland fires are not a new issue. 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 up for logging, plantations and large-scale development projects.

Today, large-scale fires are often linked to 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 method to clear huge areas of land.

Some note that while drought and El Niño conditions help fires spread, the severity of the haze is also tied to human activity. Drained peatlands, industrial timber estates and oil palm plantations can make landscapes more susceptible to burning, with fires often returning to the same areas.

Unlike traditional practices, which are small-scale, community-managed and closely monitored, fires associated with large-scale land development can be much harder to control and can create environmental and public health impacts on a far larger scale.

What makes Indonesian Borneo's wildfires especially alarming is that they are burning through one of the world's largest tropical peatland ecosystems.

Under normal conditions, these peatlands act as enormous carbon reservoirs. But under abnormal conditions, such as those now affecting 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 intensify over the coming months, the fires could become significantly worse.

Last year, without El Niño, forest fires in Indonesia burned through 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 told the BBC that this year's El Niño could burn an area as large as 11 million hectares, putting it on a par with one of Indonesia's worst wildfire seasons, which took place from 1997 to 1998.

Earlier this week, Indonesia's forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni told reporters that the effort to put out 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."