Nick Edwards, Singapore – The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Thursday a global effort was needed to put out Indonesia's spreading forest fires.
"We need the resources of the world, not just Asian people, to help put these fires out," Suvit Yodmani, regional director for UNEP in Asia and the Pacific, told Reuters by telephone.
Blamed on slash-and-burn land clearing and worsened by El Nino-induced drought, Indonesia's fires spewed a cloud of thick choking smog across Southeast Asia in 1997, causing widespread health problems and airport and factory closures.
Experts expect the fires to be even worse this year.
Indonesia's Forum for the Environment (Walhi) says the situation in East Kalimantan, on the Indonesian part of Borneo island, is already desperate with up to 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) destroyed so far this year and 900 fire sites or "hot spots" identified by satellite pictures.
Yodmani said international aid was vital to Jakarta, where rebuilding an economy shattered by financial crisis ranked far higher than quenching fires in remote East Kalimantan. "The fires are happening at a time when Indonesia can least afford to deal with them. It tempers and limits the (fire-fighting) effort which is why we are asking the whole world to do something about it," Yodmani said.
About $6 million has already been pledged by the United States and the Asian Development Bank to tackle the blazes and devise an anti-smog strategy – a tiny sum compared with the $1.3 billion they are estimated to have cost in 1997.
Indonesia bore an estimated $1 billion from last year's fires mostly in medical costs and lost tourism that pales beside its corporate debt of more than $70 billion.
"The fact is the economic crisis in Indonesia has a far higher priority than the smog," said Bruce Gale of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) in Singapore.
Scientists think last year's Indonesian fires belched about three billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – considered one of the most damaging greenhouse gasses – into the atmosphere. This is equivalent to the European Union's entire CO2 output for the year.
"These fires have an impact on the world's environment and the whole issue of global warming. It is a very serious problem globally, not just regionally, and the world must work together to solve it," Yodmani said.