Against the grain: The political ecology of the haze
October 4, 2019
In September 2019, Singapore’s Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) reading reached the ‘unhealthy’ level – the first time since August 2016. Forest fires in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan were reported to have contributed to Singapore’s hazy conditions, which was facilitated by wind patterns and spells of dry weather. Professor Syed Farid Alatas (NUS Department of Sociology), in an editorial in The Edge Markets, argues that transnational haze pollution in the region is a result of an interplay of political forces and that its solutions are no less political than technical.
Prof Alatas points to the greed and forest mismanagement that have resulted in the forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan. To make more profits and with backing from high-level politicians, large forestry firms resort to the cheap slash-and-burn method for clearing land, increasing the risk of uncontrollable fires. Furthermore, forest fires have also been started by large firms as “a weapon in social conflict” to drive out smallholders while the latter does the same in retaliation against the former.
In recognising this political dimension of the smog, Prof Alatas brings up two problems in confronting the issue. Firstly, he states that there is a lack of alarmism with respect to the short and long-term seriousness of health damage; he cites a pollution expert who has likened the effect of the smog to millions of people taking up smoking and predicted multiple illnesses resulting from this. Secondly, he sees a problem of anthropocentrism – the lack of interest in the broader ecological dimensions of the disaster. The implications to the region’s ecosystem and the global climate are significant, such as the adverse effects on bees and plants, and exacerbation of global warming due to the release of massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
Prof Alatas asserts that the only way to prevent the haze issue from recurring is if the region bears collective responsibility for it – beyond merely admitting that the haze is a man-made event.
Read the article here.