Forest Fires & Regional Haze in Southeast Asia

The fires and resulting air pollution which afflicted Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998 were a major environmental disaster affecting the livelihood and health of the people of the region, destroying forest and wildlife resources, releasing greenhouse gases and having serious implications for the rich biodiversity of the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Individual chapters have been contributed by international experts and cover a range of issues. The relation of the El Niño effect to droughts and fires is discussed and the history of fires in the region is outlined. Although the fires were associated with long periods of drought, in most cases they had human causes, and the land and forest management policies responsible for them are also identified. Another chapter describes the important role remote sensing played in monitoring and locating the fires and haze. Other contributions are concerned with the chemistry of haze, the long-range transport of pollutants and their modelling, the effects on forest ecosystems, and the implications for global climate change. Health impacts of the air pollution are discussed and the costs in economic terms are analysed. The inability of the Indonesian government to control the fires, the public responses to pollution problems and efforts at international co-operation are also discussed, as is the portrayal of the issues in the media.