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Vital Stories

Addressing Peatland Forest Fires for Public Health in Southeast Asia

Staff from the Environmental Health team including Dan Kass, Sumi Mehta, Lynn Tang, Nahid Rashid, and Aanchal Mehta join students from a fire-free village in Riau Province in Indonesia

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 21 the International Day of Forests in 2012. Today, we celebrate our forests and raise awareness of the need to preserve and rehabilitate them. The state of forests is important to us all, as they provide us with essential oxygen to live. Forests are also crucial for mitigating climate change and are home to more than half of the world’s terrestrial species of animals, birds and insects. Yet unfortunately, their benefits are often overlooked, and more than 7 million hectares (17 million acres) of forest are lost every year.  When these forests are burned, the consequences to the air quality and environment are even more dire (to learn more about public health effects of air pollution from forest fires and from wood fuel burning by households – another contributor to loss of forests — you can read our recent CityHealth Perspectives blog here).

While often referred to as ‘haze’, because of its effects on visibility, the air pollution caused by forest and peatland fires affects the health of millions of people in Indonesia and neighbouring countries Singapore and Malaysia. Practices of agribusinesses such as palm oil, pulp and paper to clear forests through fire are a leading source of air pollution in the region, even outside of the more severe haze episodes.

The damage from a 2015 haze episode alone was estimated to cause more than 100,000 deaths in the region and cost USD$16.1 billion in economic, social and environmental losses. This is likely an underestimate, as it excludes long-term health and social impacts, which are staggering and most significant for vulnerable populations such as the very young, the very old, and those with chronic health conditions. Particulate matter pollution from haze can penetrate deep into lungs causing respiratory and cardiovascular problems and even premature death. Beyond peak haze episodes, smoke from fires is also a major source of air pollution in general, causing thousands of preventable illnesses each year, including cardiovascular and chronic respiratory illness.

Like most major public health challenges, there is no “one size fits all” solution to preventing haze. Rather, public health evidence needs to inform a suite of interventions and public health experts need to work with partners in other sectors to prevent, predict, and treat fires. Under-enforcement of laws prohibiting land seizures and clearing by burning contributes to fires. In its natural state, peatlands are waterlogged and not prone to fires. However, once they have been drained in preparation for agriculture, the dried peat easily burns, producing a large amount of smoke. Peatland preservation and rehabilitation are therefore integral parts of the solution, as are engagement with local government and communities to embrace sustainable agricultural practices for land clearing and use.  With the increasing availability of information to predict when and where major fires are likely to occur, early warning and response systems play a key role in ensuring a comprehensive haze abatement strategy.

In 2017, Vital Strategies Environmental Health (EH) division launched a new project to integrate public health approaches – focused on assessing and reducing human health effects from air pollution — into ongoing efforts to abate forest and peatland fires in Southeast (SE) Asia.

Staff from the Environmental Health team join local health workers at a clinic in Pelalawan (Riau Province, Indonesia)

While there has been a lot of activity in this space from the conservation/forestry perspective, the Environmental Health team is keen to shine the spotlight on the public health impacts of the haze, making the case to drive action and collaborate with partners in other sectors to promote sustainable and healthy agriculture and forest management in order to protect public health across the region. These efforts are part of a broader strategy focused on strengthening air quality management across the region.

Earlier this month, the Environmental Health team toured Riau province on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, since many of the fires from previous years have originated from this province. The team also went to Jakarta to meet with potential collaborators, including UNICEF, WHO, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), World Resources Institute, WWF, ASEAN and The Forest Trust. These meetings underscored the shared interest in integrating a broader public health approach into future fire prevention activities. This will likely involve increasing the role of public health surveillance and health impact assessment to further advance ongoing initiatives and achieve health, ecological, and climate benefits of preventing fire-related pollution.

Senior Air Pollution Epidemiologist Sumi Mehta with a student in the fire-free village of Pelalawan (Riau Province, Indonesia)