I have seen the forest fires HSBC is helping to fund
I have seen the forest fires HSBC is helping to fund
13 February 2017
published by http://www.greenpeace.org
INDONESIA – The elderly gentleman approached me as our morning protest yesterday unfolded in front of HSBCs Indonesian head office in Jakartas World Trade Centre building. Refusing the campaign postcard that I offered, his brow furrowed, he berated me for the action and bombarded me with questions. The gist was: Why on earth are you complaining about HSBC, and what does a bank have to do with forests?
It wasnt hard for me to explain. Ive been living in Pontianak, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) for 22 years, and for these past ten years Ive lived through annual forest fires and smoke haze. The crisis culminated in 2015. My city, along with dozens of others across Kalimantan and Sumatra, were blanketed in thick smoke. Anyone going outside was forced to inhale the toxic fumes, and in fact most people were exposed even in their own homes, made as they are with breezy open construction. We lived and worked under darkened skies for weeks.
So why was I in Jakarta on a weekday morning, standing in front of the HSBC building? Sharing postcards telling the story about these fires and the damaged forest and peat landscapes that they feed on?
Its quite simple: because HSBC has been funding palm oil companies that cause deforestation and fuel forest fires. The bank, Europes largest, has opened its coffers to some of the worst palm oil companies who rely on draining peat swamps and clearing forests, creating the flammable landscape which every year catches ablaze and chokes our lungs. The fires are eating up the last precious habitat for orangutans and Sumatran tigers, and in 2015 are calculated to have caused a hundred thousand premature deaths from smoke illness across South-East Asia.
I explained all this to the gentleman who demanded to know what I was doing on HSBCs doorstep. I told him of my concern for the future of Indonesias forests in the future. And that more than two hundred thousand other people worldwide people like you had signed a petition to HSBC showing they shared my concern. For me, they are not just names on a page, they are my family in Kalimantan, my friends in Sumatra, and thousands more from Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Czech Republic and Great Britain. All of us hope that HSBC will take a leadership role, implement its policy and stop funding the relentless destruction of Indonesias forests.
Our action that morning was eventually shut down by police and security guards, and together with my fellow activists I was pushed out of the HSBC office precinct. Before I stepped out, I turned back to make sure that our petition package would be given to HSBCs management. I looked up at the windows of the tower where I imagined the staff were peering down at the commotion, hesitant to meet us. I hope they will read the names on the petition and understand its not a meaningless list. That it is an important message for HSBC and other banks to stop funding the companies which are destroying our remaining forests.
SINGAPORE, Feb 9 People in Singapore are willing to cough up nearly 1 per cent of their annual income in order to guarantee the absence of transboundary haze for a year, researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have found.
In total, they are willing to pay US$643.5 million (RM2.8 billion) a year large enough to make a substantive impact on the problem if used for land conservation and restoration, the researchers state in a paper published in Februarys issue of the journal,Environmental Research Letters.
The papers authors, Yuan Lin, Lahiru Wijedasa and Dr Ryan Chisholm, wrote: Our results indicate that Singaporeans experience sufficiently negative impacts of air pollution (in) their day-to-day life, or personal health during haze periods, that they are willing to trade off personal financial gain for improvements in air quality.
Transboundary haze is a long-standing problem in the South-east Asian region, largely caused by the drainage of carbon-rich peatland as well as companies and farmers in Indonesia using fire to clear land.
Singapore experienced its worst haze episode in 2015 from September to November, with the Pollutant Standards Index hitting hazardous levels.
Since then, Indonesia has renewed efforts to prevent fires, although a state of emergency was declared last month in Riau province over forest and land fires.
The economic impact of haze pollution here has been estimated using cost-benefit analysis before, but the researchers said that the figures could be an under-estimate because they exclude impacts such as non-hospitalisable health effects that are difficult to infer from economic data.
The 2015 haze episode was estimated to have cost Singapore S$700 million (RM2.19 billion) in losses.
The NUS researchers surveyed 390 people in public areas from November 2015 to February 2016 on their willingness to pay, should the Singapore Government be able to guarantee good air quality year-round.
The participants, from various age and income groups, were given options ranging from 0.05 per cent to 5 per cent of their annual income, after they indicated if they were willing to support such a haze mitigation fund.
The average persons willingness to pay was an estimated 0.97 per cent of his/her annual income.
However, about three in 10 respondents were unwilling to pay even the minimum option of 0.05 per cent of their annual income.
Wijedasa said that one of the solutions proposed for the haze problem is payments for ecosystem services.
This could take the form of richer nations aiding better land management and restoration by making regular payments.
Indonesia has estimated that it needs US$2.1 billion to help restore two million hectares of peatland in (the country). They have currently only received US$50 million from Norway and US$17 million from the United States.
“Could this shortfall be filled by Singapore (and other countries in the region)?
Tan Yi Han, who is not involved in the study and is co-founder of non-governmental organisation Peoples Movement to Stop Haze, said that the findings are helpful and should motivate the Singapore Government to spend on measures to prevent haze, such as a subsidy on certified sustainable palm oil, as well as aid to support peat restoration and protection efforts in Indonesia.
His organisations survey last year found that more than nine in 10 respondents were willing to pay more for certified sustainable products to help mitigate the haze, Tan said.
Most were willing to pay 5 to 10 per cent more.
Consumers game to chip in to avoid any haze include Steven Lim, who is in his 40s and self-employed. How much he is willing to contribute would depend on the amount needed to make an impact.
Maybe S$10? Multiplied by many individuals, it would be a lot, Lim said, preferring that the money goes to the Indonesian government.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/money/article/singaporeans-willing-to-fork-out-1pc-of-income-to-ensure-no-more-haze#sthash.CRhWHQHj.dpuf
El capitán del primer batallón de la Unidad Militar de Emergencias (UME), Emilio Arias, ha descrito como “dantescos” los efectos del incendio forestal en el paraje natural de la Sierra de Gata (Cáceres), aunque ha sido optimista en cuanto a su extinción al darse una situación “bastante favorable” en estos momentos. Fotogalería ALCALDE 11 Fotos La Sierra de Gata, tras el incendio “El incendio se dio por estabilizado y ahora mismo sólo hay pequeños focos que se reactivan por lo que la situación es bastante adecuada para intentar extinguir el fuego”, ha explicado Arias en una entrevista en COPE. Arias ha descrito como “dantesco” el efecto del fuego en una zona “donde el terreno era precioso”. El mando único del Plan Director del Infoex decidía este lunes mantener activo el Nivel 2 de peligrosidad en el incendio de Sierra de Gata ante las previsiones de viento y altas temperaturas. Las mismas predicciones indican que habrá una mejoría a partir de las primeras horas de la noche del lunes, según ha informado la Junta de Extremadura. Más de 200 efectivos se mantienen en la zona. Intentar llegar a la normalidad es “un tanto difícil”, y que ahora hay que hacer valoraciones de los daños El incendio declarado el pasado jueves ha arrasado unas 7.500 hectáreas de alto valor agrícola, ambiental y paisajístico, de ahí que el Gobierno regional haya iniciado ya la evaluación de los daños y comenzado a preparar la recuperación de la zona. El director general de Medio Ambiente, Pedro Muñoz, ha afirmado que el incendio ha causado un “desastre” desde el punto de vista medioambiental ya que ha arrasado miles de hectáreas de pinar, olivar y pastos, además de haber producido cuantiosos daños materiales en algunas poblaciones. La asociación conservacionista SEO/Birdlife ha denunciado que el incendio afectó gravemente a especies amenazadas y a espacios protegidos de la Red Natura 2000, incluidos robledales, madroñales y castañares centenarios. Todo el área afectada es una zona ornitólogica de interés mundial. Por su parte, el alcalde de la localidad cacereña de Hoyos, Óscar Antúnez, ha alabado la participación ciudadana en el municipio para ayudar a los operarios del plan Infoex como “lo bonito dentro de la tragedia” y ha añadido que el “sentir general” de los ciudadanos de Sierra de Gata es de “frustración e indignación” tras el incendio forestal. El alcalde ha señalado que ha podido hablar con los vecinos de la localidad y que los “más afectados” son los que han perdido fincas o casas de campo, sobre todo una familia que ha perdido su domicilio de vacaciones habitual, que era una casa “recién reformada”. Asimismo, Óscar Antúnez ha indicado que intentar llegar a la normalidad es “un tanto difícil”, y que ahora hay que hacer valoraciones de los daños, tanto la Mancomunidad de Municipios de Sierra de Gata como la Junta de Extremadura, para ver qué ayudas se pueden proporcionar y de qué modo, además de cuáles serán los medios disponibles. Por último, el primer edil de Hoyos ha explicado que los vecinos, “más allá de la lamentación”, deben intentar hacer “una vida normal”, aunque ha considerado que es muy difícil “dado el paisaje que tenemos”, ya que casi el 90% del término municipal está calcinado, ha indicado.
Ver más en: http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/2532392/0/fuego/gata/dantesco/#xtor=AD-15&xts=467263
