DW reporting: “100,000 deaths due to toxic haze in Indonesia”

DW, a German online publication, has done pretty extensive coverage of events within Indonesia's story of forest fires and haze over the last couple years. The most recent news refers to a report that suggests that tens of thousands -- perhaps even a hundred thousand -- deaths can be attributed to the unhealthy smoke-filled air conditions that have been blown all across Southeast Asia especially due to Indonesia's forest burning. Forests are burned as part of a "slash and burn" agricultural practice, both by small landowners and by larger plantations run by corporations. This burning is particularly dangerous because a) often the soil is peat soil, a highly flammable material that is difficult to put out, and b) this issue arises in the dry season in Indonesia, when rain cannot be relied on to fix the problem. The haze can be found across borders even in Singapore, and therefore there is international pressure to deal with the issue, as documented in this overview of haze issues: http://www.dw.com/en/why-southeast-asias-haze-problem-persists/a-18715535 In 2015, the haze was especially bad (dryness was exacerbated by El Niño weather), but this has been an issue effectively every year since the 1990s. The government recently fined 23 companies for burning illegally, which environmental groups seem to believe is a bold move that does not happen often enough. http://www.dw.com/en/twenty-three-companies-fined-for-causing-forest-fir...

For more information, check out this other article by Asia Pacific that looks at one company's illicit burning as a sort of case study: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/south-korean-firm-burns-...

To see what some policy wonks think we should do, check out this op-ed by two academics: http://seasia.yale.edu/news/op-ed-jakarta-post-role-villages-forest-cons...

To read about the fatwa against forest burning issued by Muslim religious officials earlier this year, click here: http://www.dw.com/en/indonesia-issues-fatwa-against-forest-fires/a-19550725