Indonesian farmers utilize fire to clear land cheaply and
quickly for oil palm and timber plantations.
The terrain consumed by fire is known as peatlands, which consist of
highly combustible organic matter.
Peatlands release large quantities of fine particulate matter (PM2.5),
which is the leading cause of global pollution-related mortality.1 El Niño
and positive Indian Ocean Dipole (pIOD) conditions cause peatlands to become
extremely dry and susceptible to large fires that produce large amounts of PM2.5
enriched smoke/haze.1 The
effect of this haze was first observed in 1997 and twice since then in 2006 and
2015. All three events caused billions
of dollars in damage and thousands of premature deaths.2
The thegardian article3 discusses how Indonesian
and near by countries reject a scientific study that claims deliberately set
forest fires caused over 100,000 premature deaths in 2015. The news article rightfully takes and
unbiased approach to the discussion on this subject, revealing both parties
views and opinions. I believe this
article was written extremely well and leaves the reader to decide which side they
will take on the subject. A downfall of
the news article is that it does not directly link to the scientific
publication it refers to. I actually
found the publication through a New York Times article, written about the same
subject. The article states that models
in the scientific publication rely on assumptions, but the article does not
provide examples of the assumptions being made, which I believe would add to
the significance of the news article.
The scientific paper, published in Environmental Research
Letters, introduces a model framework that can provide areas with information to reduce
and/or avoid forest fires that diminish human health in regional areas. The first thing I noticed about this paper
was that a lot of acronyms were used, which are not a bad thing unless it is
not stated what the acronym stands for.
I found this to be the case in some instances of the publication. The authors do explicitly discuss the
limitations of their model in the discussion section, which is important
because it shows the authors thoroughly thought out their research. However, a downfall to this could be the
scientific validity of the estimations determined by the model.
Overall I thought the news article did a good job of
summarizing the journal article’s main points. Other news article I read on
this subject focused heavily on the death numbers and who is to blame. I liked how this news article was shaped in a
debate style because I believe it is appropriate for the subject. The news article definitely has more
political views and opinions then what I am used to reading in peer-reviewed
articles. The news article does agree in
regards to the factual information published by the publication. I would give the thegardian article an 8.5/10
score. It is easy to understand and
concise.
1. S. N. Koplitz et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 2016, 11,094023.
1. S. N. Koplitz et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 2016, 11,094023.
2. M. E. Marlier et al. nat. Clim. Change 2013, 3, 131-6.
3. “Indonesia dismisses study showing forest fire haze killed more than 100,00 people” thegardian.com: Sept. 21, 2016 [thegardianarticle]
3. “Indonesia dismisses study showing forest fire haze killed more than 100,00 people” thegardian.com: Sept. 21, 2016 [thegardianarticle]
I found these articles to be very interesting. It is a great example of politics and science butting heads. It is unfortunate that the author did not mention the policy implications that Koplitz et al. listed in their discussion section. I think that a comment or two from the Indonesian government regarding the policy implications, including things that had nothing to do with the estimated numbers of premature deaths (ie real-time information on regions that are in greatest need of policy interventions), would have given a deeper insight into the paper impacts.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, one sentence at the very end of the Koplitz et al. article gave me a much deeper insight into some of the reasons that the Indonesian government might be pushing back against the publication. The mention of REDD+ caries with it a whole world of political implications, dealing with neocolonialism and the sloughing off of first-world responsibility and accountability. Seeing a paper published by an elite team of US researchers, using methods that only a handful of people fully understand, which simultaneously condemns the handling of natural resources by Indonesia and mentions REDD+ is likely to put many leaders in similar positions on edge. I am not defending Indonesia's practices, but I do understand how this might strike a serious nerve.
Very good catch about the REDD+ mentioned in the scientific publication. I agree that Indonesian leaders may feel threatened by a "foreign" country telling them what they are doing wrong. It would almost be like going into a stranger's house for the first time and telling them they need to paint their kitchen a different color (maybe not exactly but you can understand my point). Hopefully the study will at the very least cause the Indonesian government to look at their policies about deforestation again.
DeleteTwo things strike me as I consider these articles. First, I wonder how many hounders of years these Indonesian farmers have been conducting this practice. Is this a generations old technique for clearing the ground? Did these practices have negative health effects hundreds of years ago before other pollutants were present? I am glad to see the publication offers alternatives for learning ground cover, but I question the effectiveness of putting new ideas in place. The second thing that strikes me, is the large scale impact these fires are having. I would not consider this process to be industrial in nature but it is having significant impacts. I definitely think of the smoke stacks of some big industrial corporation as a larger producer of pollution than farmers but maybe this should not be the case. Very interesting article and it will be intriguing to learn how everything shakes out in turns of policy and practicality.
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel, apparently the deforestation by fire has not been going on for too long. 1900 is when this "tradition" started (or this was the earliest recorded time). I found a source that stated in the early 1970s deforestation started to drastically increase because land holders saw opportunities to make money in the paper products industry. In regards to wether this process is considered industrial or not, 261,000 hectares of peatlands were burned in 2015. I am not sure wether to call this industrial or not, but this is definitely a very large area burn and a ton of smoke would be produced from these fires. Also, the land is peatland which have higher carbon content in general compared to other forest types.
DeleteVery interesting articles, Joshua! I agree that the Guardian article did a good job of clearly presenting the problem and the studies that analyze it. However, I also find it intriguing that these studies are seeming to show the negative health affects these forrest fires are having now even though they have been occurring for generations. I think that the countries that use this method to clear fields for new crops need to begin considering safer methods that do not have such great potential for harming the surrounding populations. However, they first have to recognize there is a problem and that seems to be the largest barrier at this point. Hopefully, increased attention to this issue will help to motivate change of practice so that the population surrounding agricultural areas in these Indonesian countries can live in a cleaner atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteI too find it interesting that the negative health affects are being addressed now and not more before. To my understanding, the large haze event does not occur very often. It was only recorded in 1997, 2006, and 2015. Maybe the concern for public health and the environment have increased from what they were in 1997 and 2006? I assume that this would be the case that public and environmental concerns have increased from years past.
DeleteHi Josh, great blog post. I think I would have rated the news article lower based on your description of how the news article left out the assumptions the authors of the study made and how they addressed it in the original paper and because they did not have a link to the original publication. However, hopefully since both the New York Times and theguardian picked up on the scientific paper, more people will become interested in researching this problem so that less assumptions have to be made.
ReplyDeleteI was also interested in where the alleged 100,000 deaths occurred? Were they Indonesian citizens or were they from other countries (or both), as I'm not sure how far the particles generally travel or if that was beyond the work of the current paper.
Also, you mentioned that El nino and pIOD are major factors that play into the intensity of the haze because they cause the land to be even more dry and susceptible to larger fires. Does that mean the fires are uncontrolled or are the farmers intentionally burning that large of an area for that year? (I was trying to think of other solutions beyond the obvious of stopping the burning altogether).
The publication estimates premature death numbers to be 91,600 from Indonesia and 8,700 from Malaysia. How far the smoke travels is not directly discussed in the publication. The farmers will use fire for deforestation during "the dry season" (August-October). Sometimes the fires escape control into neighboring peat-swamps and forests. The dry season in 2015 was particularly dry because of El Nino and pIOD causing more and more fires to rage out of control. So not all of the land burned by the fires was intentional but there is no data to say what percentage was burned unintentionally. In the supplemental material of the publication, the authors make some suggestions how to enhance fire management strategies.
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