#asianhaze

[localfa]

Orangutans in the smoke. Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Centra… Orangutans in the smoke. Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, island of Borneo.

[localfa]

Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo covering the forest fires of Borneo… Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo covering the forest fires of Borneo. Unloading our boat at Tuanan Village on the Kapuas River a week ago during very bad smoke/haze.

[localfa]

Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Borneo. While in Central Kalima… Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Borneo. While in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia recently documenting the fire crisis, we met Indonesian military forces that had been deployed to the area to assist.

[localfa]

Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Borneo. Rains are helping put o… Photo by @TimLaman on assignment for @NatGeo in Borneo. Rains are helping put out the fires now, but will people just forget until the next dry season?

[qmgreenwatch]

A “Crime against Humanity” and nobody cares...

Whilst most people are concerned with Katy Perry’s £88m earnings topping Taylor Swift’s £53m or another one of Donald Trump’s idiotic moments, few have turned their attention towards what has been said to be the “worst man-made environmental disaster since the BP gulf oil spill”.

Also known as 2015 Southeast Asian haze, the Indonesian forest fires have been raging across large swaths and have become the cause of a major air pollution crisis. Just to understand the scale of this matter, it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany

These fires are a result of illegal “slash-and-burn” practices that, during the dry season, can spread very quickly. The Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan have been affected most, due to an exceptionally dry and hot season, along with the monsoon rains coming later, making an ideal environment for the fires to spread quickly. Although the practice of burning fire to clear land is illegal, it is proved as being the cheapest and fastest way to clear land, the law is often broken and few worry about enforcing it.

Why are these fires such an issue? Barbecues are great! This type of barbecue has become an enormous health hazard; it has polluted the air so much that in certain areas, the air has turned a thick smoky yellow colour. More than half-million people have been affected by this and at least 19 have already died. What’s more, Indonesia is the home of endangered orangutans, a third of those that live in the wild are currently under threat along with the others that belong to the national parks in the area, that have lost 20% of their land so far to the fires.

For such an impacting environmental disaster so close to the Paris talks on Climate change, anyone would assume this would be all over the news. Unfortunately, the most shocking part of this catastrophe is how little media coverage this story has had. If only the western countries were affected in the same way… -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the original article: here. For the photo of the orangutan, a mother and baby caught in Borneo fleeing the fires, see here. For the other two photos see here and here.