As seen on the Wall Street Journal

Thick” stifling smoke clouds are an annual blight in the dry season on the Indonesian island of Sumatra” when forest and peatlands are illegally set alight to clear space to grow lucrative oil palm and trees for paper production.

Usually it is the millions of Indonesians who suffer the health consequences of these bad environmental practices” which are sustained by weak governance and corruption at a time when global demand for palm oil” used in everything from shampoo to biofuels” and paper products is soaring because of rapid economic growth in markets such as China and India.

Over the past two weeks” the wind blew north and east concertedly” wafting the haze to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore” where air pollution levels soared to the highest on record” angering residents and rekindling a long-running diplomatic dispute that has ensnared some of the world’s biggest plantation companies.

The blame game intensified over the weekend” with the Indonesian government and NGOs trading accusations over responsibility for the fires with some of the large plantation companies operating in the region.

With plantation owners” small-scale farmers” local officials in Sumatra and the national governments of Indonesia” Malaysia and Singapore all pointing the finger at each other” environmental scientists say little has changed since the last major regional haze outbreak in 1997-98 and that hopes for a co-ordinated solution to the enduring haze problem are distant.

That raises serious doubts about the ability of Indonesia” one of the world’s biggest emitters of the greenhouse gasses that are believed to cause climate change” to achieve its ambitious target to cut carbon emissions by 26 per cent by 2020.

Peter Kanowski” deputy director-general of the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor” near Jakarta” says the crux of the issue is the illegal burning of peatland by plantation companies” which are motivated by big potential profits and emboldened by poor law enforcement and collusion from local officials in Indonesia.

Peatland is attractive to planters because it is usually unoccupied and therefore easier to acquire. But drained peatland” even if not deliberately ignited” is highly susceptible to outbreaks of fire and” because of the high carbon content and depth of the peat in Sumatra” these flames are very difficult to extinguish.

“If we want to stop this happening” we will have to do something differently from what we did between 1997-98 and now”” says Mr Kanowski.

The Indonesian military has scrambled helicopters and aeroplanes to water bomb the fires and “cloud seed”” dropping salt into the air to encourage rain. But Mr Kanowski says these efforts are only “playing around at the margins”.

The Indonesian government has promised to punish the errant plantation companies” many of which it says are based in Malaysia and Singapore. In response” Singapore called on Indonesia to uphold its own laws but also vowed to exert pressure on any Singapore-based companies found guilty of environmental breaches in Sumatra.

But a lack of clear and transparent data and maps makes it very hard to expose the culprits.

Over the weekend” NGOs including Greenpeace and the World Resources Institute released analyses based on overlaying publicly available Nasa heat maps with Indonesian government forestry concession maps. They claimed that many of the fires were burning on concessions owned by or supplying some of the world’s biggest agri-business groups” including Singapore-based Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd (April) and Wilmar” Indonesia-based Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and Malaysia’s Sime Darby.

“If you look at the numbers of fires” it’s a stretch to say they’re all started by community action”” says Nigel Sizer” a forest conservation expert at the WRI.

But the companies dismissed or downplayed these accusations” saying they had “no burning” policies. APP said there were only seven fires in its suppliers’ concessions” covering 200 hectares” five of which were started by the local community. April said there were only three fires in its concessions” covering 20 hectares. Wilmar said there were some fires started by small holders near its estates. Sime Darby said there were no fires in its operating areas but that it was “unable to exert control over activities” in areas within its concessions that were occupied by local communities.

Nirarta Samadhi” the deputy head of the Indonesian president’s task force on reducing deforestation” says the government has sent a verification team to Sumatra to identify the transgressors and will endeavour to find “a solid approach to enforce the law”.

But” warns Helena Varkkey” a lecturer in international relations at Malaysia’s University of Malaya” this will be tough given the extensive decentralisation in Indonesia” deeply ingrained patronage politics in Indonesia” Malaysia and Singapore” and southeast Asian nations’ principle of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs.

“There is little chance of any change in the business-government relationships in the sector”” she says. “As long as it continues to be profitable to burn” and as long as the companies can continue to get away with it under the protection of their patrons” this region should continue to suffer from seasonal haze.”

Although frustrated by the recurring problem” environmental campaigners say that pressure from the public and key commercial buyers of palm oil and paper” such as Kraft” Nestlé and Unilever” can help force plantation companies to improve their practices.

“Just as it is the responsibility of plantation companies to adhere to the law” it should be the responsibility of consumers to consume ethically”” says Mr Kanowski.