After months of forest fires, particularly in Jambi, Riau, South Sumatra and Central Kalimantan, and the resulting smoky haze that blanketed the provinces, their neighbors and even Singapore and Malaysia, the annual environmental problems will likely end soon, thanks to the beginning of the rainfall that marks the end of the extremely prolonged drought this year.

The arrival of the rainy season is indeed a relief, particularly for the government, which has been struggling to put out the fires, mostly in peatland areas, and simultaneously attempting to put an end to the haze problem and its impacts on society '€” interrupted school, business and social activities, as well as repeated cases of flight cancellations or delays, including to and from the high-profile tourist island of Bali.

Those exclude the reported cases of breathing problems experienced by people because of the thick pollution '€” so frequent it has reached alarming and dangerous levels '€” lasting for weeks. In total there were 17 people in the four provinces who died from respiratory-related illnesses.

The government has been doing all it can '€” deploying all its resources, civilian and military institutions and personnel to the haze-affected regions, as well as looking for the international community'€™s assistance '€” to immediately end this environmental calamity. Yet, all those efforts, including inviting experts from foreign countries that have fire-extinguishing capabilities and experience and renting two Russian-made water-bombing aircraft, the Beriev Be-200, which can each carry 12 tons of water per trip, proved less successful as fires continued to engulf the easily inflammable peatlands as soon as the water dried out.

So, as earlier predicted by the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the arrival of the belated rainy season this November is eagerly anticipated and expected to soon bring an end to the problems of forest fires and smoky haze.

For a while the problems will likely be temporarily settled, but for how long can the nation enjoy a forest-fire-free and smoke-free environment? Unless a permanent and correct settlement of these environmental problems is in place, the annual problem of forest fires and smoky haze will continue to plague the country and its neighbors next year and in following years.

A number of major breakthroughs have been achieved by the government this year. Major actions, including visits by President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo himself and his Cabinet members to major hot spots in the four provinces and the establishment of a '€œfire extingushing and haze settlement task force'€ coordinated by the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Panjaitan, indeed succeeded in convincing people, particularly those in the affected regions, that the government was serious in handling the problem.

Other significant measures that have been taken include the revocation of a Central Kalimantan regional bylaw that allows '€œslash-and-burn'€ methods in clearing plantation lands prior to the beginning of the planting season and the legal prosecution of a few companies that have allegedly been involved in this slash-and-burn method.

However, all these '€œserious'€ efforts are apparently not enough if they are meant to bring an end to these environmental problems once and for all. Unless the ban on slash-and-burn land clearing is imposed uniformly across the country, the same old problems will continue to happen again and again.

So far, the government has only revoked one regional bylaw that allows slash-and-burn, but failed to identify similar policies practiced in other provinces. It remains unclear whether the same ordinances will come into effect in other provinces.

It is true that individual farmers might have also been involved in practicing this land clearing method, but in reality its alleged practice by companies that hold large plantation concessions will certainly have larger impacts than when it'€™s practiced by individual farmers. Such a fact was personally witnessed by Luhut during his visit to the Ogan Komering Ilir regency last month.

Similarly, the government apparently has been partial in its commitment to prosecute all companies '€” small and big '€” allegedly involved in this slash-and-burn land clearing method. It can be seen in the government'€™s reluctance to reveal the names of all the companies proven to be responsible for the forest fires and haze problems and keep them as its own secret instead.

Even though, for example, such a ban on this land clearing method is non-existence, the fact that such practices had caused prolonged haze problems and seriously impacted many aspects of people'€™s lives could already be categorized as criminal acts and the perpetrators should be held accountable.

It has become an open secret that slash-and-burn is the cheapest method of land clearing compared with other methods. It is therefore not surprising that this method is much favored by everyone '€” individual farmers and companies.

However, the impacts of forest fires and smoky haze this year have been so extremely severe and massive that all the losses '€” financial, material and immaterial '€” could have been much bigger than the amount of money that the perpetrators could have saved by slashing and burning the forest. The choice is theirs '€” and all of ours.
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The author is staff writer at The Jakarta Post.

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