China News Service, Beijing, October 14 (Wei Zhiqiang) When opening the air quality monitoring website, users will see a city circle with extremely red and purple pollution indexes - major cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta are among them.
On October 13, local time, according to the IQAir air quality monitoring list, the three most polluted cities among major cities in the world are Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, and Singapore. Among the top five, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia account for 4 seats.
What's happening to the air in this area? The answer starts with the 202,000 hectares of tropical forest burned in Indonesia this year.
The mountain fire caused by Shaoba
The burning of land to clear land for the cultivation of high-value crops is an ongoing practice in Indonesia. The organic matter-rich quagmire fires caused by this behavior spread high concentrations of PM2.5 fine particulate matter from Indonesia to the Malay Peninsula, driven by the monsoon.
According to Singapore’s Lianhe Zaobao, schools in Malaysia are still closed in three states, one federal territory and several regions. Singapore launched its haze subsidy program on Monday, 11 years after it was last launched.
The haze is invisible and boundless, but it is like a rope: one end is tied to environmental pollution problems, and the other end is tied to global supply chain issues. Indonesia seems to be the party directly responsible for this wildfire, but the burning and clearing of land by large multinational companies is the direct cause of the fire.
Smoke hangs over palm oil industry
Sumatra, one of the central areas of this wildfire, is a key link in the global palm oil industry chain. Nearly 70% of Indonesia's palm oil is produced here. Multinational oil companies have burned forest lands in pursuit of profits and efficiency, which has also resulted in today's wildfire chaos.
Indonesian Interior Minister Tito Karnavian recently convened a national meeting of local chiefs, requiring all regions to strictly prohibit any form of burning during the state of disaster emergency, and instructed local leaders to go to the countryside in person to convey the ban to villagers.
The Indonesian government has also suspended the issuance of new reclamation licenses covering approximately 66 million hectares of virgin forest and peatland, and said it has restored 4.16 million hectares of peatland to a moist state to slow the spread of wildfires.
Cooperation between the three countries hopes to get out of the gloom
Under the crisis, the three countries decided to join hands to overcome the difficulties. The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has previously reiterated that it will continue to strictly abide by the "ASEAN Cross-Border Haze Pollution Agreement" and regularly report fire data and rescue progress.
Singapore and Malaysia have also expressed their willingness to provide fire-fighting assistance, which Indonesia welcomes. According to Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" report, ASEAN has established a response mechanism to natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions, but the haze issue has not yet been covered.
However, the haze will not stop spreading without a plan. Residents of the three countries along the Strait of Malacca are looking forward to a blue sky. (over)
