Indonesia 'needs time' to tackle haze - Joko Widodo

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has said he needs time to tackle the forest-burning which creates a haze every year over South East Asia, as it was “not a problem that you can solve quickly”. In fact, it would take three years for results to be seen from efforts to end the huge annual fires.

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo

The pollution is caused by people in Indonesia's Sumatra, Kalimantan and Riau regions illegally burning large areas of forest and peat for planting, mostly with lucrative palm oil trees. The fires often spin out of control and spread into protected forested areas.

A peat bog - peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation

The problem has accelerated in recent years as more land has been cleared for expanding plantations for the lucrative trade. The burnt land also becomes drier, which makes it more likely to catch fire the next time there are slash-and-burn clearings.

Deforestation in Riau province, Sumatra, to make way for an oil palm plantation

It is repeated point of tension between Indonesia and its neighbours every year, often causing air conditions classified as highly hazardous to human health. Indonesians are also victims of the haze: earlier this year it was so bad in the Riau province that a state of emergency was declared.

Singapore and Malaysia have called on Indonesia to do more to address the problem, though Indonesia has often pointed out that some of the companies responsible for the burning are foreign-owned and that their neighbours benefit from cheap palm oil products.

Haze over Kuala Lumpur

Mr. Widodo said Indonesia had "gone to great lengths" to tackle it already, including sending 3,700 soldiers, nearly 8,000 police officers and four water-bombing planes to put out the fires. It was building water reserves in the forest and canals to get water to the hotspots, he said, while also making progress to enforce laws against forest-burning.

Indonesian President Widodo with his supporters

The Indonesian president has stated,

"You will see results soon and in three years we will have solved this."

(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)