Haze

The haze’s been around since last week and looks like it’s not going to get any better soon. The cause? It depends very much on who you’re asking. You ask the politicians, they’ll say it’s those inconsiderate swidden cultivators burning their forest again to open new fields. Unfortunately, many would pin-point in the same direction. But seldom anyone would take into consideration the fact that these “inconsiderate swidden cultivators” have been practicing this activity for many generations (it’s less these days because the village youths tend to migrate into the urban areas in search of employment). I can’t remember anyone complaining of the haze then. This haze phenomena is a creation of the 1990s. So, it must be one of those other inconsiderate parties, namely, the palm oil plantations. Consider the situation: one family in a village would burn 2-3 hectares of land these days. Due to the increasingly declining village population, there would be no point for them to burn any more space than they could manage to plant their crops. On the other hand, the palm oil project would clear several hundred – if not thousands! – of hectares to plant their precious palm oil. Now, who does more land clearing? Go figure.