Forest fires used to be very rare in South East Asia. In the 70’s and 80’s, during my schooling years there was no such thing as the annual haze. I remember in the late 80’s and 90’s you could see the sun occasionally covered by an ever so slight haze. It is nothing like what it is nowadays. For the most part of the 90’s I lived in as far as one can be from constraining pollution–the Hawaiian island of Kauai. When I came back to Malaysia in 2002 I got reacquainted with the haze as a season.
August through October, the driest months in Malaysia are also its haziest. We have learned not to bother complaining about it, to just live with it and walk around with a surgeons mask on especially acrid days. Every so many years, as in El Nino years, the haze gets so hazardous that the government has to shut down schools and advise people not to go out as politicians come out to speak about curing the problem once and for all–until the next year.
This year El Nino is up and at it again. The haze has caused a nationwide shutdown of schools though for only one day but we are hoping that the worst is over. I live in the Klang Valley and yesterday after living through a two week blanket of haze and dry weather it rained for a whole day. What a relief. The not so great news is that the rains were the result of days of cloud seeding not the inter monsoon rains that anyway should be disrupted by El Nino. While the Met department is predicting that the the haze will abate, the dryness that El Nino is going to cause this year may be just beginning.
The annual haze in South East Asia is attributed directly to agriculture. Slash and burn farming is still the cheapest way to clear land for new crop. The main haze contributing crop that is cleared are old growth oil palm–which are big trees. Once the trees are felled and the trunk hauled off for fibre boarding the left over leaves, trunk and root are set ablaze. The main culprits of these fires are small holder farms but because of the lack of enforcement many also believe that the big conglomerate farms are in on the action. On especially dry years like this year, these ‘agri’ fires spark off the forest peat which magnifies the problem.
In nature tropical forest peat rarely catch fire, in fact forest fires in the equatorial tropics rarely occur because of peat. The peaty forest beds act as water sinks that prevent fires spreading unlike the forest fires in the temperate forests. Forest fires are also not a natural part of the equatorial ecosystem as it is in the pine forests. In the tropics, large farms need good drainage, the need for this drainage causes the peat in adjoining forest to dry out. When lit peat fires are very difficult and dangerous to put out as it is essentially fire below the surface that creeps at very high temperatures. Water bombing usually doesn’t do much. Incessant monsoon rains that usually get going towards the end of September is the cure. If El Nino interrupts these rains the peat will just have to burn out and the worst of the haze may be yet on the horizon.
What strikes me about this haze problem is its scale. It seems so much foliage is burnt that it contributes annually to about 13% of CO2 increase and the resulting smoke blankets thousands of square kilometres engulfing nations for months.Even recent volcanic eruptions pale in comparison. Of course all this burning is renewable as the net CO2 increase will be reabsorbed by replanting what is burnt in a few years. So why not energy companies take advantage of this annual human endeavour and buy the bio mass on the cheap and run power plants instead of using coal. I am sure the volume of growth can last power plants until the next cycle and smoke from the burn can be captured and used by chemical industries and fertiliser plants. Is such an idea far fetched? Its probably easy to implement with the resources that power companies have available to them. Ultimately is about giving up the addiction to coal and crude–that’s as difficult as telling the farmers not to slash and burn.
August through October, the driest months in Malaysia are also its haziest. We have learned not to bother complaining about it, to just live with it and walk around with a surgeons mask on especially acrid days. Every so many years, as in El Nino years, the haze gets so hazardous that the government has to shut down schools and advise people not to go out as politicians come out to speak about curing the problem once and for all–until the next year.
There is a city in there
This year El Nino is up and at it again. The haze has caused a nationwide shutdown of schools though for only one day but we are hoping that the worst is over. I live in the Klang Valley and yesterday after living through a two week blanket of haze and dry weather it rained for a whole day. What a relief. The not so great news is that the rains were the result of days of cloud seeding not the inter monsoon rains that anyway should be disrupted by El Nino. While the Met department is predicting that the the haze will abate, the dryness that El Nino is going to cause this year may be just beginning.
Kids nevertheless know how to have fun when schools out
The annual haze in South East Asia is attributed directly to agriculture. Slash and burn farming is still the cheapest way to clear land for new crop. The main haze contributing crop that is cleared are old growth oil palm–which are big trees. Once the trees are felled and the trunk hauled off for fibre boarding the left over leaves, trunk and root are set ablaze. The main culprits of these fires are small holder farms but because of the lack of enforcement many also believe that the big conglomerate farms are in on the action. On especially dry years like this year, these ‘agri’ fires spark off the forest peat which magnifies the problem.
Agri Slash and Burn
In nature tropical forest peat rarely catch fire, in fact forest fires in the equatorial tropics rarely occur because of peat. The peaty forest beds act as water sinks that prevent fires spreading unlike the forest fires in the temperate forests. Forest fires are also not a natural part of the equatorial ecosystem as it is in the pine forests. In the tropics, large farms need good drainage, the need for this drainage causes the peat in adjoining forest to dry out. When lit peat fires are very difficult and dangerous to put out as it is essentially fire below the surface that creeps at very high temperatures. Water bombing usually doesn’t do much. Incessant monsoon rains that usually get going towards the end of September is the cure. If El Nino interrupts these rains the peat will just have to burn out and the worst of the haze may be yet on the horizon.
Forest Peat on Fire
What strikes me about this haze problem is its scale. It seems so much foliage is burnt that it contributes annually to about 13% of CO2 increase and the resulting smoke blankets thousands of square kilometres engulfing nations for months.Even recent volcanic eruptions pale in comparison. Of course all this burning is renewable as the net CO2 increase will be reabsorbed by replanting what is burnt in a few years. So why not energy companies take advantage of this annual human endeavour and buy the bio mass on the cheap and run power plants instead of using coal. I am sure the volume of growth can last power plants until the next cycle and smoke from the burn can be captured and used by chemical industries and fertiliser plants. Is such an idea far fetched? Its probably easy to implement with the resources that power companies have available to them. Ultimately is about giving up the addiction to coal and crude–that’s as difficult as telling the farmers not to slash and burn.
No comments:
Post a Comment