Who's to blame for the toxic smog choking South East Asia?

Who is responsible for the toxic smog blanketing South East Asia?

Wildfires have been burning for weeks in Kalimantan, Indonesia

As Indonesia confronts its worst wildfire season in a decade, toxic smog is suffocating millions across the region.

On the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra, the air has taken on a foreboding amber hue, with air quality measured at hazardous levels.

The smog, also called the haze, has spread beyond Indonesia’s borders into neighbouring countries, prompting public health worries. It has shrouded Singapore’s skyline and led to school closures in parts of Malaysia.

Anger is now growing at the companies accused of setting farmland alight, as well as at the authorities who have struggled to stop them.

This year’s annual dry-season wildfires have been particularly severe because of an unusually strong El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that alters weather patterns around the world.

According to the independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, 1,043,377 wildfire hotspots have been recorded in Indonesia, burning a total of 900,000 hectares of land.

Many of the fires in Indonesia’s forests and peatlands are caused by clearing vegetation to make way for land, a practice known as “slash and burn”.

This agricultural technique has long been used by farmers in Indonesia to create nutrient-rich soil for new crops.

But today, many of these fires are tied to commercial farming and are occurring on a much larger scale, making them harder to control. Activists and government investigations have repeatedly accused some companies of using fire as a cheap method to clear vast areas of land.

Although slash-and-burn farming is illegal in Indonesia, enforcing the ban has long been difficult.

However, the persistent haze this year has pushed Indonesian authorities to intensify efforts to punish those responsible.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has called for harsher penalties against slash-and-burn farming, describing it as “ecological terrorism”.

Last month, Indonesian authorities said they had suspended the operating licences of 26 companies linked to the wildfires and opened investigations into others. Officials vowed that cases involving criminal elements would go to court.

But the controversy over the haze is not limited to Indonesian companies.

A Greenpeace report released this month identified businesses based in Singapore and Malaysia that are linked to plots of land in Indonesia where wildfires are burning.

Among them is First Resources, a Singapore-based palm oil company. Greenpeace said that between August and September, more than 30 haze source points were recorded on land managed by its two Indonesian subsidiaries.

In a statement to the BBC, First Resources said it maintained a “strict zero burning policy across all planting activities and implement robust fire prevention, monitoring and firefighting measures throughout our operations”.

Greenpeace also named Malaysian plantation group Kuala Lumpur Kepong, whose subsidiary PT Menteng Jaya Sawit Perdana managed land in Indonesia where 19 haze source points were recorded.

Kuala Lumpur Kepong said in a statement that a “majority” of the fires started outside its concession area and had all been extinguished.

“We do not condone or permit the use of open burning for land preparation or any other purpose across our operations,” it said.

It remains unclear how effective governments can be in penalising offending companies.

In 2014, Singapore passed the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, which allows the government to act against local and foreign firms found to be contributing to the haze.

The following year, when Singapore experienced a severe haze episode, authorities issued summonses to several Indonesian companies believed to have cleared land by burning, in an effort to prosecute them under the new law.

That drew strong criticism from Jakarta, which said the move damaged bilateral relations. And because Indonesia refused to cooperate, Singapore authorities said they were unable to obtain information about the suspected companies.

Also in 2015, Indonesia’s then-Vice-President Jusuf Kalla angered Singaporeans when he said that “for 11 months, they enjoyed nice air from Indonesia and they never thanked us... they have suffered because of the haze for one month and they get upset”.

Similar tensions resurfaced last weekend when Syahganda Nainggolan, who heads Indonesia’s government communications agency, said the raging wildfires were beyond human control and added that the oxygen in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia “also comes from our forests”.

“When there is no smoke, we send oxygen,” he added in a video that has been widely shared on social media, drawing criticism and mockery from Malaysians and Singaporeans.

But Indonesia has also apologised to its neighbours in the past for causing the haze.

This year, Indonesian officials have thanked Singapore and Malaysia for offering assistance to tackle the wildfires, although Indonesia has not officially requested international support.

Inside Indonesia, civil society groups have been trying to push the government into action.

In Pontianak, in West Kalimantan province, several groups have filed a class action lawsuit against the Indonesian government and Prabowo, accusing them of “gross negligence” over recurring toxic haze.

They want the government to declare the haze a national disaster, which would allow recovery measures such as covering healthcare costs.

A similar case was filed last year in South Sumatra, but it was dismissed.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Kalimantan and Sumatra, air pollution levels have stayed at dangerous levels for weeks.

Many people have no option but to endure the toxic smog every day.

“I’m short of breath and have a headache breathing air now. But I still have to work,” Imrayedi, a 63-year-old motorcycle taxi driver in Pekanbaru city on Sumatra island, told BBC Indonesian last week.

“The government must also think about the common people like us. Please take action to find a solution so that this haze problem can be resolved immediately.”