Save the Urang-utangs, our children and the Planet - Stop burning the rainforest now!
- by: Fifi Roest
- recipient: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
Orang Utans, rhinos, gibbons and birds are burning alive, children are sick, schools are closed. This is the new normal for Southeast Asian summers. In the near future, we and our children will each have to carry an oxygen tank as the air will not be breathable any more.
Year after year thick plumes of smoke are clearly visible in satelite images. Deforestization is rampant. Companies and governments pay no attention. It will be over in a month - or two - or three. People will forget. Our problems are increasing profit, reducing costs, labour, infrastructure. Corruption will get you anywhere.
Car emissions are tiny compared with the carbon emissions from these fires and loss of precious rainforest habitats is our children's heritage lost forever.
This must top NOW.
Pollution levels are hitting record highs, thousands of hotspots are detected. Fires rage unchecked for months, over huge areas of Borneo, Sumatera, even Sulawesi and peninsular Malaysia. Year after year thick plumes of smoke are clearly visible in satelite images. Deforestization is rampant.
Car emissions are tiny compared with the carbon emissions from these fires and loss of precious rainforest habitats is our children's heritage lost forever.
This must top NOW.
Define clear industry best practices.
Make them into law with prohibitive penalties for violators.
Make burning more expensive than sustainable practices.
Don't let governments and (multi-national) corporations get away with thinking "Just wait. In a month the fires will be out, we don't have to do anything. People will forget. Profit, labour, infrastructure, economy, elections, those are important things for us to worry about.
PSI - Pollution Index - above 300 is considered dangerous. Schools in Singapore where closed nation-wide as this level was reached. Millions of people - most without access to masks or any sort of air purification - have been breathing air of up to 2000 PSI for months in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Christian or Muslim, refugee or tax-payer, there will not be anywhere for anyone or their babies and children to live if this carries on.
High PSI and haze is becoming the norm, not only in South-east Asia and China but in many countries in Europe and the Americas.
We need to deal with large-scale rampant pollution and deforestization NOW.
