ABSTRACT
The forest fires that blanketed a large part of Southeast Asia in thick haze during 1997 and 1998 are only the most visible sign of the environmental crisis that looms over the region, threatening to stifle the economic growth and rising living standards of the past few decades. A combination of drought conditions brought on by a particularly severe occurrence of the El Niño southern oscillation (ENSO), a periodic climatic phenomenon that affects the Pacific Ocean, with the use of fire in land preparation by rubber and oil palm plantations, set standing forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo ablaze. Fires raged uncontrollably between September and November 1997, and again in February and March 1998 after an abnormally short wet season. The pall of smoke extended over much ol Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, southern 1 hailandj and the Philippines. At its height, on September 23, 1997, the Air Pollutant Index in the city of Knelling, in East Malaysia, recorded a staggering 839, when a reading of over 100 is regarded as unhealthy and one of over 300 as hazardous (Hieben et al, p. 78). In all, it is estimated that fire-produced gases and particulates seriously affected the health of over 20 million people and caused damages in excess of US$4 billion (Levine et al. p. 2). The haze was even held partially responsible for the crash of a Garuda Indonesia passenger plane near Medan in Sumatra in September 1997, killing 231 people (Hiebert et al. p. 75) and for a ship collision in the Straits of Malacca that caused 29 fatalities (Levine et al. p. 12).
