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Many of Southeast Asias cities are being blanketed in an acrid, smoggy mix of smoke and ash from forest fires, industrial emissions, and vehicular exhaust. Land-clearing agricultural fires in Indonesia, mostly in the province of North Sumatra, are producing much of the smoke and causing many to point the finger at the Indonesian government and the countrys pulp, paper, lumber and palm oil corporations. NASA satellite imaging has recorded some 3,000 fires in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia so far this year, though Burma, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines are not entirely blameless.
Though last years Hazepocalypse embarrassed Indonesia and prompted promises of action against further fires by its government, it seems little has been done so far. Drought conditions are not helping.
Smoke and haze over Sumatra on March 12. Pic: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team
From the Guardian:
From Palangkarya in Borneo to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, the air has been thick, the sun a dull glow and face masks obligatory. Schools, airports and roads have been closed and visibility at times has been down to just a few yards. Communities have had to be evacuated and people advised to remain indoors, transport has been disrupted and more than 50,000 people have had to be treated for asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses in Sumatra alone. Last week more than 200 Malaysian schools were forced to close, and pollution twice reached officially hazardous levels.
Around half the fires are burning on industrial logging land and palm oil plantations. By not controlling the fires on their land (whether theyve started them or not), these mega-corporations are not only poisoning Southeast Asia, theyre also shooting themselves in the foot. The president of Indonesias Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), which is Asias second-largest pulp and paper firm,recently announced that the company is itself a victim of the fires, which have cost it $5-6 million US.
Indonesias environment minister recently announced that legal action is being taken against 45 companies involved in slash-and-burn land clearing and deforestation in the country.
Airpollution, and were talking about both indoors and outdoors, is now the biggest environmental health problem, and its affecting everyone, both developed and developing countries.
The risks fromairpollutionare now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes. Few risks have a greater impact on global health today thanairpollution. The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up theairwe all breathe.
Maria Neira, WHO public and environmental health chief (via AFP)
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Brown cloud of death: Indonesias industry is killing SE Asia
Papua is Indonesias poorest region
Indigenous peoples rely on their land for their survival and therefore any incursion onto their land creates serious problems for any community, Sophie Grig, a senior campaigner for Survival International, a UK-based indigenous rights advocacy organization, told IRIN. These incursions in West Papua generally also involve the presence of the military to protect the project [which] leads to human rights violations.
Over the past four years, at least 74 people have died in the village of Baad alone - one of more than 160 across Merauke- due to infighting between communities created by disagreements over the sale of land to agribusinesses, and police brutality, according to Leonardus Maklew, a Baad resident who has been representing nine Malind villages in negotiations to defend their land from an Indonesian sugar cane plantation since 2010.
The most serious consequences have been human deaths. Up until now, the police, companies, and military never tried to understand our needs and our struggle, said the 35-year-old ethnic Malind man.
Police and military personnel routinely accompany companies when they come to ask the Malind to sell their land. It is a form of intimidation, said Sophie Chao, a project officer with the Forest People's Programme (FPP), a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands that campaigns for the rights of indigenous peoples of the tropical forest facing environmental destruction and human rights violations.
Since 2009, when the local government initiated planning for the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), a mega development project aiming to convert more than a million hectares of forest to agribusinesses in Papua, at least 12 corporations have moved into areas inhabited by an estimated 116,500 indigenous peoples generally known as the Malind, who are struggling to survive in increasingly degraded, deforested environments. Tribal leaders co-opted?
While police and military brutality against indigenous Papuans is nothing new in this resource-rich, former Dutch colony, violence between communities on this scale is unprecedented, residents say.
The government says we are just a hot-headed people, always fighting, but it is worse now. Tools that used to be used for hunting are now used against one another, said Maklew, explaining that bows and arrows, and knives, are all commonly drawn during fights, which have occurred at least once a month since corporations started (in 2009) trying to convince villagers individually to sell their land, bypassing customary collective decision-making processes.
Company spokespeople of PT Anugerah Rejeki Nusantara (ARN), a sugar cane plantation owned by the Wilmar International Group (WIG) headquartered in Singapore, often co-opt tribal leaders, paying them a salary to convince the other villagers to sell their land, according to the FPP, and without giving full information to communities that they will not see their land again, according to Rainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO that campaigns for the protection of rainforests and their inhabitants. WIG strongly denies the charge.
Wilmar pledges to respect and recognize the long-term customary and individual rights of indigenous and local communities,stated WIG in a public statement on 5 December 2013.
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Conflict in Indonesias Papua Region
One of the biggest pieces of legislation under consideration in City Council right now a land bank bill has turned into a debate over competing ideas for amendments, some of which significantly alter Council's authority over the land bank.
City Councilor Deb Gross, who introduced the legislation Jan. 14, and has acknowledged her original bill needed improvement, has released some ideas for amendments along with City Councilor Corey O'Connor (though not the exact language) on the city's website.
Gross' original proposal would create a quasi-government authority that would be responsible for centralizing the city's blighted/vacant/tax delinquent land and work with homeowners, community groups and developers to turn those properties around. The land bank, authorized under state law, can exercise a 'trump bid' at treasurer's sale (meaning the land bank can acquire property without being the highest bidder) and can expedite the title-clearing process (meaning it can resolve potential ownership conflicts more quickly).
Not surprisingly, the bill has generated lots of debate: Who should serve on the land bank's board of directors? Should City Council have a vote on the final use of individual properties? How should community groups or individual neighbors be included in the process?
And those are some of the issues that prompted city councilors Daniel Lavelle and Ricky Burgess to release their own set of amendments earlier this month that, among other things, would expand the board of directors to include "community-based organizations" and would require unanimous council approval anytime the land bank wants to turn over a property it has acquired.
Gross and O'Connor have responded with their own ideas for amendments that would also expand the board to include community members, but would not give council authority over the disposition of its land.
City Paper invited city councilors Gross, O'Connor, Burgess and Lavelle for a roundtable discussion last Friday to chat about these issues and that will appear on our website and on newsstands tomorrow.
For now, though, here are some of the highlights of Gross/O'Connor's ideas for amendments (after the jump).
*Community members can force the land bank to hold public hearings on disposition of land. If 15 "nearby residents" petition the land bank within 30 days of the notice of sale, the land bank would be required to hold a "pre-disposition Public Hearing in the neighborhood."
*The land bank board must vote on the disposition of all property from the land bank. The original bill gave the land bank's staff authority to made decisions on property worth less than $50,000, a provision that angered Burgess who argued there are plenty of properties in his district below this threshold and staffers shouldn't be allowed to decide what happens to them.
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Land Banking: It's a battle of amendments
The Olathe City Council scrutinized two major redevelopment projects Tuesday rezoning some land for a single-family housing area and clearing the way for a residential care facility.
The council partially approved a plan for residential redevelopment proposed for the south side of College Boulevard and the west side of Lone Elm Road.
It agreed to rezone 13.6 acres from a business park to a single-family residential area. Sunnybrook Management Co. LLC plans to build 21 lots averaging 8,400 square feet. Two other parts of the redevelopment were tabled for further study.
Those proposals included rezoning 28 acres of business park land to allow 71 single-family lots, ranging from 8,300 to 9,000 square feet, and 26 other acres of business park land to make way for 94 luxury villas.
Several members of the council said they needed time to consider rezoning a large amount of business park land for residential use.
I need more time to wrap my head around how much (business park) space we have left in the city, said Councilman Jim Randall. It is a precious commodity that we wont have much more of one day.
The council was not hesitant to approve a revised special use permit for a residential care facility, Bloom Senior Living, to be constructed near 133rd and Greenwood streets.
At its Jan. 21 meeting, the council had tabled voting on the special use permit after asking for revisions to a building design criticized as too commercial-looking and flat.
Since then, the developer added stone chimneys, bay windows, shutters and faux balcony railings around select windows, and a wraparound porch with columns on the northwest corner of building.
It will be a beautiful project and Im looking forward to seeing it constructed, Councilwoman Marge Vogt told the developer. Thank you for listening to us.
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Olathe OKs some rezoning at College and Lone Elm
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Details Published on Friday, 21 March 2014 09:25
Perak MB/Google ImagesIPOH: More than 17,000 hectares of land in Perak have been illegally cleared, resulting in the state government losing hundreds of millions of ringgit in revenue.
Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir said the illegal activity was believed to be done in a planned manner by certain groups.
It is not some small activity, there are areas where the activity is done in a syndicate manner, he told reporters after the Selamat Pagi Perak Bersama Menteri Besar programme over PerakFM here today.
He said besides the Land and Mines Office, the enforcement now involved the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
There may have been weaknesses before in enforcement resulting in it now being rampant, and there wasnt a good mechanism to control this from happening, he said.
Zambry said various steps were being taken to overcome the problem including identifying the affected areas and legal action which could be taken against those responsible.
He said there were several cases where the responsible parties were identified but managed to escape.
-The Malay Mail http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/perak-state-government-loses-millions-due-to-illegal-land-clearing
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Perak State Government Loses Millions Due To Illegal Land Clearing
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20 March 2014| last updated at 09:04PM
"We are losing millions in earnings due to the illegal land clearing," he said.
Speaking to reporters after the Selamat Pagi Perak radio programme on Perak FM here today, Zambry said the problem of illegal land clearing was all over the state, but the more prevalent districts were Batang Padang, Manjung and Perak Tengah.
"I do not want to blame anyone, but the problem could have been due to weak enforcement and the lack of mechanism to control it worsens the problem," he said.
Zambry said illegal land clearing in the state was undertaken by syndicates.
"Sometimes these syndicates will put a few people to work on the land - to pull wool over the authorities eyes, but the syndicates are the biggest culprit," he said, adding that the state had combined all relevant authorities like police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to keep the land clearing in check.
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Zambry: 43,000 ha of Perak land illegally cleared