South-East Asian haze increases risk of respiratory mortality

Research SEA: Since 1997, the massive burning of biomass in Sumatra and Kalimantan, Indonesia, has affected neighbouring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand. The burning of biomass has generated a significant amount of haze that travels overseas, affecting the region’s economy and public health.

Haze resulting from forest fires is known to increase the concentration of toxic airborne particles that are smaller than ten microns in size, such as carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Previous studies have found that airborne particles can cause serious respiratory effects. In 1997, South-East Asian haze increased the number of asthma attacks by 10.7% in Malaysia alone.

Professor Mazrura Sahani, an environmental epidemiology expert at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, recently conducted a follow-up study on this issue focusing on Klang Valley, the most populated and most affected area on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. She analysed the association between mortality rates from respiratory illness in Klang Valley and 88 days of recorded haze events from 2000 to 2007. Haze events typically last for seven days.

Professor Sahani collected respiratory mortality data from Malaysia’s Department of Statistics and obtained environmental data from six continuous air quality monitoring stations in Klang Valley. Her results showed that South-East Asian haze has increased the risk of respiratory mortality in Klang Valley as a result of increased exposure to toxic particles during the haze days. By the sixth day of a haze event, daily mortality rates were higher than normal....

Haze in Kuala Lumpur, shot by Krisjohn, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike  2.0 Generic license

Indonesia's 'haze' pollution defenses not enough, says green group

Michael Taylor and Kanupriya Kapoor in Reuters: Indonesia's promises to tackle the upcoming annual "haze" season with a $30 million fund and limited military equipment have been called into question by experts anticipating worse pollution levels than last year due to the El Nino weather pattern.

Indonesia has failed in previous attempts to stop the regional haze, with last year giving the worst pollution readings since 1997. Outgoing Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was forced in mid-2013 to apologize to neighbors Singapore and Malaysia, which were blanketed in thick smog caused by forest fires in Indonesia.

With expectations high that the El Nino dry weather pattern will hit around the middle of the year, the haze could be worse than in 2013, conservation experts told Reuters. "We are talking hundreds of thousands of hectares that will probably burn and I doubt (the government) will be able to cover this much of an area," said David Gaveau, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, a conservation organization based in Indonesia.

"We're expecting El Nino and if it comes, we're going to see much more fires than last year." The heavy smoke from slash-and-burn clearances often comes from the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan, where large forest concessions are used by pulp and paper and palm oil companies, some of which are listed in Singapore....

NASA image of 2013 haze over southeast Asia

Southeast Asia agrees to adopt haze monitoring system

Stuart Grudgings in Reuters: Southeast Asian nations agreed on Wednesday to adopt a new system to improve monitoring of smog caused by fires, an attempt to make plantation companies more accountable following the region's worst air pollution crisis in 16 years.

Thick haze, mostly from land-clearing fires in Indonesia, blanketed Singapore and swathes of neighboring Malaysia earlier this year, stoking diplomatic tensions as air pollution climbed to the most hazardous levels since a similar crisis in 1997.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which began a two-day regional summit in Brunei on Wednesday, has been criticized in the past for not taking stronger action to prevent the chronic pollution problem.

Even with improved monitoring, critics say the region lacks the legal mechanisms or strong institutions to enforce compliance.

"ASEAN leaders have approved the Haze Monitoring System. We hope the respective ministries will upload the digitized concession maps as soon as possible," Singapore's environment minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, wrote on his official Facebook page...

Haze in Kuala Lumpur, shot by Krisjohn, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Indonesian farmers take legal action against president over haze

Terra Daily via AFP: Indonesian farmers in a province at the centre of Southeast Asia's worst smog outbreak for years have filed a lawsuit against the president in response to the haze crisis, activists said Wednesday. Environmental groups Tuesday filed the class-action lawsuit at the Jakarta High Court on behalf of farmers from five villages in Riau province on Sumatra island.

They argue President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has not done enough to curb activities, such as slash-and-burn land clearance and logging, that lead to climate change, and their lives are being deeply affected. In June, raging fires set to clear land in Riau cloaked the province and neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore in smog, with the haze hitting the worst levels for more than a decade.

Riau is at the centre of Indonesia's booming palm oil industry, and illegal slash-and-burn clearance is common, as it is the quickest and cheapest method for land to be converted for use as plantations. A coalition of green groups filed the lawsuit, including forest protection group Jikalahari, which said the severe haze this year had prompted the action and had "deeply affected the communities"...

NASA image of smoke over Sumatra

Discontent rises with Singapore haze

Kirsten Han in the Diplomat: Although a bustling, densely populated city-state, Singapore has nonetheless managed to maintain a reputation for having relatively clean air. Once a year, though, the island is engulfed in smog and haze, a result of forest fires caused by slash-and-burn tactics employed by plantations in Indonesia. For more than a decade now Singaporeans have endured the consequences of unethical plantations choosing the easy way out in clearing their land. Still, usually people just cough and scratch their noses, grumble a little and continue on their way.

Not this year, though, as the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) climbs higher than ever before. At one point it hit 401, classified by the National Environment Agency (NEA) as “very hazardous”. It’s all anyone can talk about. The Twitter hashtag “#SGHaze” is constantly trending in Singapore, and social media feeds are clogged with screencaps, comments and postings from those obsessively monitoring the PSI figures. The severity of this year’s haze problem has brought to the surface a plethora of worries and criticism of the government.

With the smog hitting record levels, people have been advised not to remain outdoors for long periods of time. Several companies and employers have asked their employees to work from home, or stop working completely. McDonald’s temporarily ceased its delivery service, citing health concerns for its workers. Despite this, the government has yet to issue an official “stop work” order, and many construction workers – most of them low-paid migrant workers from Bangladesh, India or China – are still toiling away in hazardous conditions.

Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), an NGO focused on migrant workers’ rights, wrote in a statement published on that website that it “is gravely concerned that current bad haze conditions will affect the health of workers in many trades, e.g. construction, marine, sanitation, landscaping.”...

Singapore haze at night, shot by mqnr, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Indonesia names Sinar Mas, APRIL, among eight firms behind Singapore haze

Jessica Cheam in Eco-Business: Indonesia has blamed eight companies, including Singapore-based Sinar Mas and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) for the fires raging across its land of Sumatra that has blanketed parts of Malaysia and parts of Singapore in its most severe haze in history.

Senior presidential aide Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was reported by news wires on Friday saying: “The majority of hotspots in Riau (province) are inside APRIL and Sinar Mas concessions,” The environment minister said not all eight companies were Singapore based, but declined to name the rest of them. He added that investigations are still ongoing and he was not able to elaborate further where these companies are from, although Indonesia is expected to name the companies in the next few days.

Indonesian Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya met his counterpart from Singapore, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan in Jakarta on Friday, who handed a letter from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Dr Balakrishnan had earlier in the week called on Indonesia to name and shame the companies so that commercial pressure can be applied on them to prevent and address the haze.

Some of the world’s major largest palm oil companies such as Singapore-based Wilmar International and Malaysia-based Sime Darby have denied involvement in the burning, although Wilmar has been reported to say it cannot control local practices of slash-and-burn for agricultural and other purposes...

Singapore haze on June 17, 2013, shot by Brian Jeffery Beggerly, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Indonesian fires worsen, Singapore smog sets record

Kanupriya Kapoor in Reuters: Military planes water-bombed Indonesian forest fires that worsened on Friday and blanketed neighboring Singapore in record levels of hazardous smog for a third straight day in one of Southeast Asia's worst air-pollution crises.

As Singaporeans donned face masks and pulled children from playgrounds and Malaysia closed schools in the south, the deliberately-lit fires grew bigger in some areas. Whipped up by winds, the blazes added to fears over health problems and diplomatic tension in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, three of Southeast Asia's biggest economies.

...Indonesia's Environment Minister, Balthasar Kambuaya, said the government had identified five companies behind the fires, but refused to name them, according to The Jakarta Post newspaper.

Singapore's government has warned the haze could last weeks. Illegal burning of forests and other land on Indonesia's Sumatra island typically take place in the June to September dry season to clear space for palm oil plantations. But this year's fires are unusually widespread and the hazy smog is the worst in Singapore's history.

"Since the fires are happening mostly on plantation lands, we believe there are plantation companies involved. The president has already put together a team to investigate who owns the plantations," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency....

Fires on Sumatra in 2006, via NASA

Haze highlights weak ASEAN cooperation

Martin Abbugao in AFP: Just a week after Southeast Asia hailed "substantive progress" against cross-border air pollution, Singapore and parts of Malaysia are again being blanketed by smog from forest fires in Indonesia. The problem, known euphemistically as "the haze", raises fresh questions about the effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose leaders will hold a summit in Hanoi from October 28-29.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo phoned his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa on Friday to press for action and offer help in extinguishing forest fires largely set by farmers in the vast island of Sumatra to clear land for cultivation. Malaysian officials also vented their frustration at the persistent problem, which analysts said highlights weakness both within individual ASEAN countries and the bloc itself in enforcing domestic laws and regional pacts.

"This just shows that ASEAN must move from talk to action," said Joko Arif, Southeast Asia forest team leader at environmental group Greenpeace. "ASEAN has been talking for more than 10 years on how to combat forest fires and haze, but I think more concrete action needs to be done," he told AFP. For its part, Indonesia should effectively implement laws that ban the use of fire to clear land and be more transparent in giving out information on the location and size of the burning activities, Arif said….

Haze from Indonesia disturbs neighboring countries

Bernama: Forest fires burning in Indonesia began to affect neighbouring countries, spreading thick clouds of smoke and haze to Malaysia and Singapore, news agencies reported Thursday. Speaking to China's Xinhua news agency, Head of Weather Monitoring Unit of Sumatra's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency Marzuki said despite the number of hot spots has decreased after rains, the feasibility is still low in Riau province.

This is also not a favorable condition for flights and one small airport in Dumai district was closed on Wednesday due to the haze, said a weather observer at Riau province Tarman Sembiring to Xinhua on Thursday.

In MALAYSIA, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Wednesday advised schools in Muar to temporarily close as the haze enveloping the district has reached a hazardous level. Indonesian news wire Antara reported that the skies over Singapore were slightly hazy on Saturday, attributing this to the smoke haze from the fires in Sumatra brought in by the prevailing southwesterly winds….

NASA shot of fires on Sumatra in October 2006

A source of haze

Sid Perkins in Science News: Scientists now know how a natural hydrocarbon emitted in large quantities by plants can be transformed into light-scattering aerosols that contribute to haze and influence climate. The finding will improve models of atmospheric chemistry and climate and may help explain puzzling field observations in some parts of the world, the researchers report.

Worldwide, plants release more than 550 million metric tons of the hydrocarbon isoprene into the atmosphere each year. But scientists have disagreed about the particular chain of chemical reactions that transform isoprene into haze-forming aerosols, says Fabien Paulot, an atmospheric chemist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Now, lab tests by Paulot and his colleagues, reported in the Aug. 7 Science, have identified a new class of substances long suspected to form as an intermediate in those reactions but never before seen.

The team created the chemicals, called dihydroxyepoxides, by placing isoprene and hydrogen peroxide in an 800-liter bag of unpolluted air and then illuminating the mix with ultraviolet light. The UV light stimulated chemical reactions, just as sunlight would, and the hydrogen peroxide served as a source of hydroxyl radicals — highly reactive compounds known as “the detergent of the atmosphere,” Paulot says. Isoprene and hydroxyl radicals reacted to form dihydroxyepoxides via two separate chemical processes. Because the resulting epoxides are highly soluble, they readily dissolve into droplets of moisture in the air to form organic-rich aerosols, Paulot says.

This process could be a major source of biogenic atmospheric aerosols, those produced by living things. Other aerosol sources include volcanoes, fossil fuel burning and sea spray….

A hazy view of Sheung Shui and Fanling, shot by Typhoonchaser, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License