It's a Hazy Dazy Afternoon.

"Last week, environmental non- profit group Greenpeace said commercial plantations control half of the land where the biggest fires are burning, and much of it is on deep peat, which is off limits under the moratorium. Forest campaigner Bustar Maitar at Greenpeace in Indonesia says it becomes like "petrol in the forest", and can burn for weeks."


"Some of the biggest companies operating in Indonesia - Wilmar International, Sinar Mas Group and Asia Pacific Resources International - are based in Singapore or Malaysia. All have issued statements saying they abide by strict no-burn policies, although Wilmar has reportedly told Singapore media that it "cannot prevent local practices of slash-and-burn for agricultural and other purposes".

"But the barb-trading over the haze, an annual annoyance that often strains relations between Singapore and Indonesia, overlooks one of the major causes of the burning - corruption."


And so the finger pointing and cry foul over the worsening haze situation has begun and like the haze itself it will lead on to accusations and worse unnecessary insults between people whose job description actually amounts to taking care of the situation as it is. Now the Indons have accused its neighbors of blowing the issue of haze globally to discredit Indonesia. Hard to see how this can be stopped in this day and age when anyone in the Congo can learn about the haze problem here so long as he or she has excess to Internet. Then there are those making demands for this and that to be done in order to punish the culprits who are responsible for the open burning that is the cause of the this haze and how long would this take? With the cross border laws still not in place properly with regard to this type of natural or man made disasters, taking legal action is the last thing that should be on the minds of law makers, the focus is on how to put out the fires.
As i said earlier this will take collective effort and lending a helping hand towards thy neighbor will be of more benefit than pointing your fingers at him. And the 'accused', will have to lower its defensive stance and pride by allowing for easy excess towards any offer for collective effort to rectify the situation by all means and this to be done with no more delay.
Three or four helicopters flying water bombing over thousand of acres of pit fire areas is a drop in the bucket, what is needed is a massive assault by humans resources as well as equipments that can combat this kind of fire. Gotong Royong or collective effort on a global scale if not a regional scale is impending.There is no excuse for not taking immediate pro-active measures to date and depending on the Indonesian government effort alone is not an option, this is a global disaster affecting lives in three or four countries with millions of people subjected to a dangerous level of health hazard. Shit happens! But we can rectify the situation and minimize its effect by taking on the challenge collectively, this cannot be emphasize enough.

“The government is deploying two Bolco helicopters and one Colibri helicopter to contain hotspots in Riau. The efforts through land have been ineffective,” he said.

“To be honest, I think Riau was quite slow in anticipating this from the beginning. But there’s no need to play the blame game. Let’s just [work] to overcome the haze and fires immediately,” he said.
                                                                                   Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
                                                                                     25th June 2013.

Right at this moment we can all sit and pray that rain comes or the fires would abate on its own; learn to accept and move on as best we could. It is up to the powers that be to step up and make the necessary appeals and delivery of help from all those that have means to do so, countries like Australia,  New Zealand and not to mention Singapore and Malaysia can and should provide assistance to Indonesia in combating this issue; and again, the culprits will foot the bill when they are brought to justice.
I am wearing out myself on this subject and I think I have moan and groan enough over the matter. As a concern citizen of this planet I have voiced my thoughts and feelings and whether they are worth pondering upon is another matter.
At the moment my blog is experiencing an error which simply means i cannot upload this piece; I wonder why.
And then again, this too will pass...