According to data from the Nusantara Atlas portal, nearly 300,000 hectares of forest and land in Indonesia have been burned down since the beginning of the year. The focus of the fires is on Sumatra Island and Borneo Island, where Indonesia shares a border with Malaysia and Brunei.
Data from the European Union's Copernicus Atmospheric Surveillance (CAMS) shows that carbon emissions in Indonesia have increased sharply since the end of July, equivalent to the years when the El Nino phenomenon reached its historical peak such as 2015 and 2019. In the period from August 28 to September 3 alone, fires here released more than 23 million tons of carbon, higher than the 20.7 million tons in the same period of the fierce El Nino in 2015.
According to meteorologists, this year's El Nino phenomenon is at risk of becoming the strongest in 40 years, causing extreme drought, making embers easily erupt into a major fire.
The main cause of the out-of-control situation is the combination of climate change and the habit of illegally burning forests for swidden farming in Indonesia. In particular, many fires occur in drainage-prone coal-fired areas. The non-governmental organization Pantau Gambut recorded more than 210,000 fire points on coal-fired land since the beginning of the year, turning organic sediment layers into smoldering fuel tanks that are difficult to extinguish underground.
The smog disaster originating from Indonesia is directly impacting social life throughout the region.
In Malaysia, on September 4 (local time), increasing air pollution levels prompted the country's government to declare a state of emergency in an area of Sarawak state on Borneo Island, and decided to close nearly 650 schools in the following week.
On the same day, data from the Singapore National Environment Agency showed that air quality in the central area of the country had fallen to an unhealthy level.
In the Philippines, PM2.5 fine dust concentrations have reached very dangerous and especially dangerous levels for a week, causing a series of schools in cities and provinces to close, before the air index began to show signs of slowing recovery.
In Indonesia, more than 1.4 million students have had to switch to online learning this week due to school closures due to declining air quality. This situation extends a series of crises when from last month, Deputy Minister of Health Dante Saksono Harbuwono warned that more than 5 million people across Borneo and Sumatra islands are facing direct respiratory health risks.
Faced with alarming air pollution, the governments of Southeast Asian countries are strengthening coordination to control cross-border pollution and request Indonesia to step up firefighting to prevent environmental disasters from escalating in the dry season.
