7 - Blowing Smoke: Regional Cooperation, Indonesian Democracy, and the Haze

Summary

Environmental degradation in Southeast Asia has many facets. Industrial pollution of urban air and waterways, rapid and often illegal deforestation, and damage to marine resources and habitats all come to mind, and all have attracted critical attention. Yet among these nontraditional threats to security, few have been more widely noted than the perennial smoke that still rises from fires in Indonesia and spreads to neighboring countries. As I shall show in this chapter, these fires and the resulting haze have triggered a long series of responses from ASEAN. Yet the flames and smoke have reappeared, to varying extents and intensities, for more than the last fifteen years. Off and on, the haze has threatened health in parts of Malaya, Sarawak, Kalimantan, Sumatra, Brunei Darussalam, and Singapore. The Philippines and Thailand have been affected to a lesser degree. On occasion, local air has been rendered toxic enough to force the closing of schools. Affected areas have lost billions of dollars in health costs and canceled hours. No wonder ASEAN has labeled the haze “the most serious problem in the region.”

Originating as it does in one country, while damaging livelihoods in adjacent countries, the haze deserves the attention of anyone interested in regional approaches to environmental security. Of additional interest is how political accountability inside one country—democratic Indonesia—may have hurt or helped its ecological accountability to the larger region.

There are many reasons to criticize the lack of environmental protection in Southeast Asia, from rapid and often illegal deforestation to overfishing and the pollution of urban air and waterways. Yet few examples of environmental concern deserve greater attention from those interested in regionalism than the haze that arises from fires in Indonesia.

The incidence and effects of burning trees, stumps, and brush have been influenced by the climatic conditions known as El Niño, which include drought, wind patterns, and the periodic warming of equatorial waters.