Marianne Kearney – One of the major problems in the haze crisis is the weak enforcement of flawed, existing laws. Companies flout the law because there is no one agency that monitors whether they abide by it.

In the past, good proposals to deter companies and farmers from starting the fires were made. Years later, they still exist – as drafts.

This time, a specialist investigation team, headed by the Environment Ministry, has been set up to look into who is starting the fires. If this team becomes a permanent force, able to investigate rapidly the hundreds of fires detected every dry season, then it could be come a formidable deterrent.

Environment Minister Sonny Keraf also admits that a major problem is the lack of co-ordination on the ground to monitor and fight fires. He agrees that there is poor co-ordination among the local mayors and the Department of Forestry.

"The Department of Forestry is not active in fighting fires, especially to go out to fires on company sites," he lamented. Mr Keraf said this could be due to corruption in these departments but environmental commentators say it is because there is not enough political heat on the departments to be responsible for the fires.

Mr Nabil Makarim, a former head of Bapadal, the environment monitoring agency, says that many of the governors are not interested in pressuring their local mayors and forestry departments until they are made responsible. "The governors have no sense of urgency and don't realise the serious long term effects of the fires. They are too pre-occupied with day-to-day problems," he says.

Another reason for the slow response is that until the fires are declared a national emergency and the natural disaster team takes over, a co-ordinated, well planned response to the fires is a pipe dream. There is no one authority or person who is charge of fire-fighters and fire-fighting equipment and to monitor the fires.

The best equipment is owned and controlled by plantation companies but local mayors do not know or care whether these companies are using it to fight the fires.