What’s the deal with haze?

It’s been a little hazy these past few weeks. Not suprising really. Not to say that it’s as certain as death and taxes but it’s been something you expect to happen yearly living in this part of the world (in Singapore, that is).

I remember browsing the magazine racks in the library sometime last year and I came across Asia! magazine, which I think has amazing content and in-depth insights on the region. I came across an article on haze in the August 2008 issue. It had some new reportings on haze that the rest of media usually do not include.

When haze gets really bad, when I am  reminded of it with each breath that I take, I really cannot help but think: if the effect of haze is this bad in Singapore, which is thousands of miles away from Sumatra, I can’t imagine how it must be like for the people who actually live there. Which is why it’s hard to understand why there are people who would do that year in and year out.

In my attempt to understand the reasons behind the annual choking season, these are some of the reported findings:

• One main driving force behind forest loss in the Riau Province of Sumatra is this company called APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited).

• It owns about 697,400 hectares of the 700,000-hectare landscape of the Kampar Peninsula landscape of Riau, a peat swamp habitat which it converted into a timber plantation. This company practically owns the entire area, with other local companies it is directly associated with.

• It also operates a 2.2-million-tonne pulp mill in Riau. How big is this  operation in the scheme of things? It’s HUGE. Even back when the mill started running in 1995, it is the largest single lined pulp mill in the world. It now runs a number of pulp mills around the world.

• Haze events have been recorded in 1983, 1990, 1991 and 1994, even before the pulp mill was built. 

• APRIL has been planting lots of trees that it would later cut to feed the pulp mill. But according to the company it will not be able to supply its pulp mill with the plantations before 2008 even if everything goes as planned. Up to that date the pulp mill uses wood originating from natural forest clearings. I’m not sure if natural forest clearings mean forest burning.

• APRIL is a Singapore based company.

• APRIL is under the subsidiary of RGM International, owned by the richest man in Indonesia, Sukanto Tanoto, accordingg to Forbes in 2008. He relocated to Singapore and based his operations here in 1990s.

• This is my favourite bit: The company received numerous awards and labels from environmental bodies for being ”Green”.  I’m not sure what “Green” means in this case.

• Does the product below look familiar to you? If you use paper for print, you probably have used this. Most, if not all print companies use this. Not just in Singapore but in many parts of the world. APRIL makes this stuff.

Public opinion on the haze issue has been to blame Indonesia and it’s authorities for being laxed on forest regulations. The media (the conventional ones not independent ones) never mentions the Singapore based company’s huge involvement in forest clearing in Riau. This hole left out by the media when reporting on haze is not giving people a complete picture of what’s really going on.

I’m not shocked by what the company does. They make paper. The world wants paper. Lots of it, and faster than new trees can be planted. Although it doesn’t sound like enough profits and effort are being chanelled to finding out better ways to make paper. They’ve been burning forest since the crazy 80s and old habits die hard. But that guy Tanoto make so much money from paper, what is he doing to find sustainable ways to make paper?  See, the Indonesian authorities can’t do that. Even if they pass some regulations to ban forest burning (if they haven’t already), it’s a freaking dense forest how are they going to catch the forest burner? Islam prohibits the burning of tree even during a war, let alone during a time of peace. I don’t think that planting new trees give anyone a right to cut them, or worse, burn them.

What I find inappropriate is that people are putting the blame on Indonesia alone for this. That’s not solving the problem. Indonesia is suffering the worst of the haze. Imagine the old and the young choking on smoke in Sumatra. Towns and villages literally blinded by thick smoke every year. This haze is part of the price that we are all paying for using so much paper so cheaply and maybe so mindlessly as well. We have blood (or shall I say smoke) on our hands, baby and we didn’t even know it.