The downside is air quality. You've seen the pictures of Chinese cities covered in smog, well in Sumatra we get smoke from jungle fires that are purposefully set to clear land. It's been a really bad year for the smoke. So much so that many families were evacuated in April to Singapore by ferry (the planes couldn't fly because visibility was next to nil.)
We are currently in the dry season in Indonesia, with rainy season beginning sometime in October. It is commonly pretty smoky during the dry season because fires built hundreds of miles from Rumbai follow air currents and sit here on top of us until the currents shift or a good rain scrubs the air. We've had about 3 red flag days in a row, and today is the worst. Red flag means air quality is above a certain amount of particles (ppm) in the air.
Not only can you see the smoke, you can smell the organics, wood and peat, that are burning. It's incredibly distressing. No outside play for the kids, Masks on everyone when you step outside. Houses taped up to try to lessen smoke in the house. Loud air purifiers running all the time. And we're totally unsure when it will diminish. I thought we were slaves to the weather report in Houston, waiting on that first cold front in fall. Here we are slaves to the weather report, hoping we can breathe again.
So I'm sitting here thinking "Thank God for the creation of the EPA in America." You may not like everything they do, but pollution in America has become so much less of an issue in the last 25 years. Remember acid rain? Remember how bad the smog used to be? I don't. Or I just barely do... thanks to new environmental restrictions....
Here in Sumatra, large corporations, with owners sitting in smog free, lovely Singapore, own giant tracts of land upon which they plant palm plantations. They are not allowed to burn to clear land. But, small local farmers with a small acreage can. So the plantations "sell" the acres back to farmers, the farmers burn, then the land reverts back to the corporation. The burning is so pervasive and sometimes so awful it shut down Singapore's airport a few years ago. That's when people started paying attention. It was so bad this spring that the president of Indonesia issued a "shoot to kill" order for anyone setting fires. A new president is now in power, and some think that the burners are testing him.
It's not an easy black and white issue though. Perhaps this is the thing that being out of America for even just two weeks is teaching me. Nothing is ever as simple as you want it to be. Everything has repercussions, and someone will get hurt on either side. Poverty is widespread in Indonesia, and farming can mean subsistence. Burning can mean prosperity.
So, why all the burning of jungle? Why the decimation of so many species? Why tolerate the smoke? Palm plantations. Again, why palm? Pick up almost anything in your pantry or your cleaning supplies. It ALL contains palm oil. Crackers, soap, chips, laundry detergent. All of it. I remember seeing signs in Whole Foods a few years ago that showed their insistence on Responsibly Sourced palm oil. I remember thinking, Really? Who cares. Now I know why, and now I care. Now I choose to support Indonesians fighting for a real burn ban and a future that's bigger than the palm oil industry.
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