Haze: Who's to blame for the toxic smog choking South East Asia?

Wildfires have been raging in Kalimantan, Indonesia for weeks, leading to a toxic smog that is choking millions of residents in the region. As Indonesia battles its worst wildfire season in a decade, the air quality on the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra has turned an ominous amber, with hazardous levels recorded. This smog, also known as haze, has drifted beyond Indonesia's borders, raising public health concerns in neighboring countries. It has obscured Singapore's skyline and forced some schools to close in Malaysia.

Anger is mounting at the companies accused of burning farmland, as well as the authorities who have struggled to stop them. The annual dry season wildfires have been especially intense this year due to an unusually strong El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that alters weather patterns globally. According to the independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, 1,043,377 wildfire hotspots have been recorded in Indonesia, burning a total of 900,000 hectares of land.

Many of these fires in Indonesia's forests and peatlands are caused by the razing of vegetation to clear land, a practice known as "slash and burn." This agricultural method has traditionally been employed by farmers in Indonesia to create nutrient-rich soil for new crops. However, many of these fires are now associated with commercial farming and occur on a much larger scale, making them harder to control.

Activists and government investigations have repeatedly accused some companies of using fire as a cheap way to clear large swathes of land. While slash-and-burn farming is illegal in Indonesia, enforcement of the ban has long proven tricky. The persistent haze this year has prompted Indonesian authorities to step up efforts to punish offenders. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has called for tougher sanctions against slash-and-burn farming, describing the practice as "ecological terrorism."