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In reply to the discussion: Indonesia is burning. The greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century. Ignored by US [View all]Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)The Jakarta Globe
Erik Meijaard: Indonesia's Silent Tragedy in a Connected World
There may finally be some positive developments regarding Indonesias fire and haze crisis, with rains in Sumatra and Kalimantan starting to reduce fires. But this isnt over. If previous El Niño fire events are anything to go by, the fire problem with now shift to the eastern part of Borneo and Papua, and could continue well into 2016.
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My conclusion about the lack of attention to the severity of the Southeast Asian haze crisis is that it is a Silent Tragedy.
Speaking to a radio reporter, her comment that in the eye of the public, Indonesias annual fires were boring emphasized the silent nature of this tragedy. Fires and haze occur every year in Indonesia. But even after there were catastrophically bad fire episodes, like those in 1982-83, 1988-89, 1997-98, and 2004, there was never any real change in political and societal attitudes towards the use of fire in land clearing.
Unlike other environmental tragedies or natural disasters, Bhopal, Chernobyl, the Nepal Earthquake, or Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Southeast Asian fire and haze disaster did not come in one big bang. Instead the disaster happened over months, affecting people over large geographies, and killing people over time and rarely on the spot. Its silent, but deadly.
But there might be more to this silence. Maybe, Indonesia, as a land of puppet masters and shadow play, stands out in its ability to keep things quiet and obscure. Talking to an Indonesian journalist who had interviewed university students in Jakarta about the haze, one comment that stuck with me was that the fires and politics around it were just too sad to contemplate, and no action could possibly help to create change.
http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/erik-meijaard-indonesias-silent-tragedy-connected-world/