People wearing face masks walk on the street in Singapore on June 21, 2013 (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
Living in Beijing, I know well how smog blights daily life. I’m sympathetic to Singapore’s plight on a day when air quality plunged to new lows (or highs), the result of clear-cut forest fires across the strait in Indonesia, which has been dragged into a war of words with its neighbour. Stinging air pollution is a drag on tourism in Singapore and southern Malaysia and a turn-off for foreign residents who comprise up to a third of Singapore’s population. FORBES Asia editor Tim Ferguson, who was in Beijing this week, remarked that his next stop in Singapore would, against expectations, be far smoggier (Beijing’s current air-pollution index: Unhealthy). And it’s not going to blow away; haze is a seasonal hazard that can linger for weeks, as was the case in 1997, which set the previous record for polluted skies in Singapore. So I’m sympathetic – to a point. Indonesia is to blame for its failure to police its forests and prevent the illegal clearing of land for plantations and other uses. Deforestation has slowed somewhat under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who recently extended a partial logging moratorium, a scheme backed by Norwegian aid with the promise of carbon credits. But the blame doesn’t stop in Indonesia. Singapore is a regional hub for agribusiness trade and financing. Indonesian companies with poor reputations for forestry stewardship raise capital in Singapore. Many of the principals are permanent residents in Singapore, which comes in handy when they default on debts at home, as was the case after the 1998 financial crash. Since then, the two countries have failed to agree on an extradition treaty, though they came close in 2009. Singapore’s environment ministry Vivian Balakrishnan, has urged Indonesia to “name and shame” companies that are guilty of setting illegal fires. Satellite monitoring and land concession maps give regulators the power to determine the source of forest fires. Indonesia’s welfare minister Agung Laksono replied Thursday that Singapore should “stop behaving like a child.” Diplomacy clearly isn’t working. Indonesian politicians have other matters on their mind, including an unpopular cut to fuel subsidies that was agreed this week after months of indecision over a widening deficit. A global retreat from emerging markets has pushed Jakarta’s main index down by over 10% in a month. Its currency has also taken a hit. It’s not yet a rout, but there are shades of 1997 in the haze.
