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Malaysia…Short Breath From Choking Haze
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Malaysian children ride bicycle in haze-covered Pulau village in Klang (Reuters)
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KUALA
LUMPUR, August 12, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Malaysia got a short breathing space Friday, August 12, from its worst
air pollution crisis in eight years as Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi
vowed to punish the Malaysian owners of plantations in Indonesia, who
were blamed for sending a choking haze across the Asian country.
The
skies cleared over downtown Kuala Lumpur's iconic Petronas Towers
Friday and palm trees shivered in breezes, carrying away some of the
haze that has shrouded the city for a week, Reuters reported.
Weather
officials, however, warned that the respite might be brief.
"We
do believe there will be a temporary relief," said Wong Teck
Kiong of the Malaysian Meteorological Service.
Malaysia
declared a state of emergency Thursday in two towns on the west coast
which have borne the brunt of the smoke from the Indonesian island of
Sumatra, separated from peninsular Malaysia by the narrow Malacca
Strait.
The
air pollution index (API) Thursday reached 529 in Port Klang, a major
shipping center, and 531 in Kuala Selangor.
An
API above 300 is considered hazardous and 500 triggers a state of
emergency.
As
a result, sore throats and red eyes have become commonplace and face
masks are the capital's hottest seller.
Punishment
Meanwhile,
Badawi vowed Friday to punish the Malaysian owners of plantations in
Indonesia, whose clearance methods were blamed for sending a choking
haze across Malaysia, Agence France Presse (AFP) said.
Badawi
said that Malaysia would cooperate with neighboring Indonesia to
punish Malaysian companies if they were found to have created the
disastrous smog.
He
added that plantation minister Peter Chin would be responsible for
dealing with the matter.
"I
leave it to Peter Chin to handle that. He may have to speak to the
Indonesian authorities or ask them to let us deal with them and impose
whatever penalties for what they have done."
Badawi
added that the plantation companies "should have realized that by
burning there, it could affect their own country."
Anger
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Badawi vowed to punish the Malaysian plantations in Indonesia.
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Protesting
Indonesia's inability to douse the forest fires which have smothered
parts of Malaysia with a dangerous haze, some 60 members of the
opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) held a protest at the
Indonesian embassy in pollution-shrouded Kuala Lumpur, handing out
paper face masks and calling for compensation.
"The
Indonesian government must know the Malaysian people are angry,"
DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng said, adding that these were
"the sentiments of all Malaysians.
Responding
to the tension, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged
to act against those responsible for the hundreds of fires raging on
Sumatra, where farmers use fire to clear land.
Malaysia's
government has said it would not take a confrontational approach with
the Indonesian government because of the greater need to preserve
their troubled relationship.
Indonesia
and Malaysia have agreed to cooperate on preventing people using fire
to clear land and to carry out cloud-seeding to induce rain.
Satellite
images taken Wednesday showed some 993 fires in Riau and North Sumatra
provinces.
In
1997 and 1998, choking haze caused mainly by Indonesian forest fires
enveloped parts of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, for months.
Corruption
On
their part, environmentalists Friday blamed corruption and law
enforcement problems for frustrating efforts to bring to justice
plantation companies accused of causing forest fires in Indonesia.
"Corruption
and collusion is rampant. It's become public knowledge and no longer a
secret," Saud Farah Sofa, an activist with Walhi, Indonesia's
leading environmental watchdog told AFP.
She
maintained that big palm oil producers in Indonesia's Sumatra and
Kalimantan had for years used the slash-and-burn method to clear land
for their plantations but little action was taken by the government to
stop the practice.
"Clearing
land by burning is the cheapest method. They don't have to use heavy
equipment or pay many workers to do the job," she said.
The
environmentalist stressed that the practice also increased the acidity
of soil to make it more suitable for planting without the use of
chemicals or other special treatments.
"These
have become incentives for burning. But there is the problem of law
enforcement," she said.
The
1999 law on forestry allows companies to use fires to clear land if
they obtain a permit from local authorities, the activist said, adding
that the problem is that permits are easy to obtain.
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