The haze of Indonesia

Posted date: 2007/10/04
Posted time: 06:08

Reporter: Good afternoon to everyone, the topic we are going to discuss today is “the Haze of Indonesia.

Reporter: From 1997, In Indonesia, many farmers burned farmlands for eliminating their fields, and many businessmen went to Indonesia forests to lumbering. Therefore, greenhouse effect be raised, the Forests of Sumatra were catch fire, and a lot of the smoke was blown to Malaysia and Singapore by the southwest monsoon. The haze problem has not been solved until now, and a lot of people complaint about it because it would influence their health. So today we have invited four people to discuss this issue.

Reporter: The first one is public relation officer from Ministry of Health, Ms. Koh. She stands for government.
The second one is the NGO, it called WWF: World Wildlife Fun, Ms. Lam. She protects the green environment.
The third one is principal of primary school, Ms. Tan
And the last one is the asthma patient. Ms. XXX

Reporter: Ok, we start our forum now.

Reporter: Ms. Koh, can u tell what solutions have our government implemented?

Ms. Koh: We have used the media or public communication to advise and remind public for avoid out going. While the pollution index has shown in dangerous, we will claim the school to break. And the most important thing is we try to make more cloud seeding.

Reporter: Ok, How about in primary school? Ms. Tan

Ms. Tan: What can we do is to provide mask to our student, cancelled all the outdoor activity and advised them to drink more water.

Ms. Tan: About the haze problem, it very much affected our daily life and health. What precaution or alert our government provides us? We should know what kind of margin of haze is not suitable for outdoor activity and as well as when it reaches to the critical stage. I have no ideal of it!

Ms. Koh: This is government confidentiality, so we are sorry for not announce the information because we are not convenience to do that.

Ms. Tan: What the government concern? Public are more important than government? Or government is more important than public? There are many people get sick in this haze problem like: asthma.

Ms. Koh: In this case, we will provide medical treatment in free to public.

Ms. XXX: I am asthma patient, and my son also got serious asthma. Do u know we all can not get the medical treatment even it is free, because the treatment that is not enough for us? And many patients become more serious without treatment.

Ms. Koh: I think we will concern more about it, and try to increase more treatment to all patients. Please give us sometime to plan it.

Reporter: Ok, how about you? And what have u done? The NGO, Ms. Lum

Ms. Lum: Basically, we only ask to popular drink more water, less go out, give them some respirator. But another part we NGO can not do anything because the matter is between both country relation. According to a data, the businessmen who from Malaysia and Singapore went to the Indonesia do lumbering, therefore, the greenhouse effect are raised. That is the reason that causes the forests were catch fire and smoke problem. I think our government can implement a policy to control the businessmen do lumbering.

Ms. Koh: We should not discuss this problem in unilateral. This issue is origins from Indonesia’s lumberman, so this is not our fault.

Reporter: So, does our government plan to solve the problem with Indonesia’s government?

Ms. Koh: In this haze problem, we have got a serious damage. For example, it influences the system of aero plane can not work in well, and our country economic was reduced. In the same time, we try to help them, but they refused us. The main reason that they do that is because they want us to respect their sovereign rights.

Reporter: Thus, would the Asean remove the policy of “not to interpret each other internal affair”?

Ms. Koh: Asean is composed by 10 countries, if any one of us want to remove this policy, we should get the admission and agreement for the other. In addition, this policy is particular and special of Asean so we usually we do not remove this policy.

Reporter: Ok, Thank you for all you come.lastly, we hope these all problems can be solved as fast as probably. And every one stops to make smoke again, drink more water, and keep health.
Thank you very much.