Indonesian
police extinguish a fire in the Kampar District of Riau Province, Indonesia on
Aug. 28, 2016. Photographer: Afrianto Silalahi/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jakarta, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesian forest
fires that choked a swath of Southeast Asia with a smoky haze for weeks last
year may have caused more than 100,000 premature deaths, according to new
research that will add to pressure on Indonesia's government to tackle the
annual crisis.
The study by scientists from Harvard
University and Columbia University to be published in the journal Environmental
Research Letters is being welcomed by other researchers and Indonesia's medical
profession as an advance in quantifying the suspected serious public health
effects of the fires, which are mostly set to clear land for farming. The
number of deaths is an estimate derived from a complex analysis that has not
yet been validated by analysis of official data on mortality.
The research has implications for land-use
practices and Indonesia's vast pulp and paper industry. The researchers showed
that peatlands within timber concessions, and peatlands overall, were a much
bigger proportion of the fires observed by satellite than in 2006, which was
another particularly bad year for haze. The researchers surmise that draining
of the peatlands to prepare them for pulpwood plantations and other uses made
them more vulnerable to fires.
The estimate of premature deaths linked to
respiratory illness that covers Indonesia and its neighbors Singapore and
Malaysia dwarves Indonesia's official toll of 19 that included deaths from
illness and the deaths of firefighters. However, the possible scale of serious
heath consequences was indicated by a statement from the country's disaster
management agency in October that said more than 43 million Indonesians were
exposed to smoke from the fires and half a million suffered acute respiratory
infections.
The study considered only the health impact
on adults and restricts itself to the effects of health-threatening fine
particulate matter, often referred to as PM2.5, rather than all toxins that
would be in the smoke from burning peatlands and forests. The bulk of the
estimated deaths are in Indonesia, by far the most populous of the three
countries and the country with the biggest land area affected by haze.
The fires from July to October last year in
southern Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo were the worst since 1997
and exacerbated by El Nino dry conditions. About 261,000 hectares of land
burned. Some of the fires started accidently but many were deliberately set by
companies and villagers to clear land for plantations and agriculture.
Rajasekhar Bala, an environmental engineering
expert at the National University of Singapore, one of five experts who
reviewed the paper for The Associated Press and were not involved in the
research, said the study is preliminary and involved a "very
challenging" task of analyzing the sources and spread of fine particulate
matter over several countries and a lengthy time frame.
Even with caveats, it should serve as a
"wake-up call" for firm action in Indonesia to curb peatland and
forest fires and for regional cooperation to deal with the fallout on public
health, he said.
"Air pollution, especially that caused
by atmospheric fine particles, has grave implications for human health,"
he said.
Frank Murray, an associate professor of
environment science at Australia's Murdoch University, said the death estimates
are not "precise health outcomes" but their overall scale should
trigger intensified efforts to deal with the crisis. The study is a major
contribution to addressing an international problem, he said.
The study finds there is a high statistical
probability that premature deaths ranged between 26,300 and 174,300. Its main
estimate of 100,300 deaths is the average of those two figures. It predicts
91,600 deaths in Indonesia, another 6,500 in Malaysia and 2,200 in Singapore.
The researchers involved in the study say the
model they developed can be combined with satellite observations to analyze the
haze in close to real time. That gives it the potential to be used to direct
fire-fighting efforts in a way that reduces the amount of illness caused, they
say.
The annual fires have strained relations
between Indonesia and its wealthier neighbors Singapore and Malaysia, who are
at the mercy of winds that carry the haze into their territory from Sumatra.
But the brunt of the crisis is faced by
millions of Indonesians in Sumatra and Kalimantan, many of them poor and with
little or no means to protect themselves from the blanket of smoke.
"Particles penetrate indoors, and
housing in Indonesia is very well ventilated, so I don't think there is any
avertive behavior that people there could have taken that would have been
effective," said Joel Schwartz, an air pollution epidemiologist at Harvard
who co-authored the study. "In Singapore, if you close all the windows and
turn on the air conditioning you get some protection, which may have
happened."
The Indonesian Medial Association's West
Kalimantan chapter said Indonesia faces an overall decline in the health of
future generations with social and economic consequences if the situation is
not tackled.
"We are the doctors who care for the
vulnerable groups exposed to toxic smoke," said Nursyam Ibrahim, deputy
head of the West Kalimantan chapter of the association. "And we know how
awful it is to see the disease symptoms experienced by babies and children in
our care."
Howard Frumpkin, dean of the School of Public
Health at the University of Washington, said it is possible the health
consequences are greater than indicated by the study because higher incidence
of certain health problems in developing countries could make populations more
susceptible to the effects of fine particulate matter.
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