How the eyes in the sky are keeping a check on forest fires
How the eyes in the sky are keeping a check on forest fires
19 July 2013
published by www.guardian.co.uk
United Kingdom — Three weeks ago, a noxious haze engulfed Singapore and parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, breaking air pollution records. Malaysia closed schools, Singapore advised residents to stay indoors and distributed free face masks to the poor, and Indonesia evacuated some villages in the worst affected areas.
The suffocating smog emanated from forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. This week, environment ministers from across southeast Asia gathered for a summit in Malaysia under intense public pressure to take action and prevent a repeat of the smog. Singapore tabled a proposal calling on the other governments to publicly disclose company land leases, supporting accountability when monitoring future fires. The governments announced that they would share the company lease data among themselves, but stopped short of making it publicly available. This is mixed news at best. New technology has given us an unprecedented ability to understand and solve the problem of haze and fires, but further efforts are needed to ensure this vital data on company land leases is accurate and made public.
Media coverage and the public outcry over the fires have been strengthened by the ability to monitor exactly where fires were burning in real time. Various groups used freely availably satellite data from Nasa and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to map and share information about the fires each day. The World Resources Institute (WRI) used this information to quickly publish maps showing where the fires were burning, and which companies were potentially responsible based on concession data from the Indonesian government. Other groups confirmed the analysis, turning the media spotlight and the eyes of government investigators onto the companies and their possible responsibility for the fires.
WRI’s analysis of the Nasa fire data showed that half of the fires were likely burning on land managed by companies, including some that supply the palm oil that ends up in a bewildering array of supermarket products from shampoo to cosmetics, and from ice cream to soap. In recent years, retail behemoths like Walmart, Tesco, and Marks & Spencer, and their suppliers global consumer goods giants including Unilever and Nestlé have made significant efforts to encourage palm oil producers to behave responsibly. This incident was the major test of these new policies and reaction was swift.
As soon as data was published showing which palm oil growers were implicated in the Sumatra fires, several global consumer brands contacted suppliers for clarifications, with the implicit threat that purchases could be suspended. The speed and public nature of these actions signal a dramatic new way of doing business. In the past, it might have taken months or even years of campaigns by well-organised pressure groups like Greenpeace to bring about such changes. Now, with real-time information, media coverage and a well-informed citizenry, together with the new sustainable sourcing policies of the big firms, action is being taken within hours of bad practice being detected.
Governments are also under growing pressure to take action. For over a decade, Indonesia has refused to ratify a key regional agreement on trans-boundary haze pollution and has not taken steps to address the root causes of fires, which include entrenched conflicts of land between companies and communities. Indonesia is the only country in the region that has not ratified the agreement, and also the country with the greatest incidence of haze and smog-producing blazes. Indonesian environment officials this week vowed to push for ratification, though this is a decision that can be made only by the Indonesian parliament, which has repeatedly rejected such a move.
Day-to-day monitoring of the smog levels and fire locations, published on websites with large local audiences in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, and reinforced in daily media coverage, has significantly shifted the tone of government discourse. Betraying their tradition of non-intervention in their neighbours’ affairs, Singapore and Malaysia have loudly and repeatedly pressed Indonesia to act, while also offering assistance. In a truly precedent-setting move, Singapore has also threatened to prosecute any companies linked with illegal burning that have corporate connections to Singapore. This is highly significant since some of the large holding companies that control the Indonesian industry, including the world’s largest palm oil trading company, Wilmar, and pulp and paper giant RGE, are headquartered in Singapore.
More significantly, top reformers in the Indonesian government have been demanding that companies publicly release information about land holdings. They are also seeking greater transparency in the structure of the various conglomerates, holding companies and hundreds of subsidiaries that control the palm oil, logging, and pulp and paper industries. The contradictory move by other Indonesian officials attending the haze summit this week to share company land lease maps, but only with other governments, is a serious obstacle to progress. Unless the governments elect to make company land lease data public, companies committed to sustainable sourcing of palm oil and other products cannot reinforce the efforts of governments and others with market pressure. Without the maps, the media and concerned citizens cannot easily monitor government efforts and help ensure those responsible for illegal fires are held accountable.
New technology and the transparency and public disclosure opportunities it creates are not going to solve the southeast Asian fires problem, or many other environmental and humanitarian issues alone. But they might enable more public awareness, outrage and demands for action to tip the balance and force more companies and governments to act. It’s not surprising that some government officials are seeking to maintain secrecy, but it seems only a matter of time before real-time monitoring by citizens, journalists, markets and enforcement agencies becomes the norm.
