It has been one month since out-of-control forest fires in Indonesia blanketed large parts of South-east Asia in a thick smoky haze, and environmentalists say the smog's persistence is evidence that Indonesia is unable to do much to deal with the region's biggest environmental threat.

A thick layer of smog covering parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, caused by land clearing forest fires on a massive scale, has been a yearly occurrence since the mid-1990s.

The last big blaze was in 1997 to 1998 and resulted in the destruction of about 10 million hectares of natural forest and the exposure of more than 20 million people to dangerous pollutants, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

This year, satellite photographs over the region show around 20,000 hotspots where forest fires are burning in Indonesia's Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, where the haze is worst, and Riau province in southern Sumatra, according to Indonesia's environment ministry.

After easing a bit two weeks ago, the haze thickened in Kalimantan last Monday and Tuesday, as the fires are aided by the dry season and winds. Sjahrani Sjahrin, head of the Central Kalimantan Environment Control and Managing Agency, said: ''The only way to extinguish the hotspots is heavy rain.''

Health hazard, transportation disrupted

Over the weeks, the thick haze has been affecting people's health, transportation and the environment.

At one point, visibility dipped to a range of 10 to 20m in the morning and about 100m by midday in parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan. Some flights in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia were cancelled due to poor visibility.

The record lows in air quality in Kalimantan in recent weeks forced people to don face masks and schools to shut down. In response to local government pleas, the central government in Jakarta has sent 30,000 masks and medical teams to the province.

According to Indonesia's environment officials, the fires are also making it difficult for locals to access clean water. This has in turn caused an outbreak of diarrhoea due to polluted water.

''The uncontrolled behaviour of human beings is behind the raging forest fires,'' said Agus Sari of the non-governmental organisation Pelangi, citing data showing two million hectares of forest have been damaged across the country since 1998.

Since that time, an early warning system, supported by international and regional organisations has been set up to use high resolution satellite imagery to detect forest fires.

Tough talk, no action

But so far, this man-made disaster is far from being solved. On paper at least, Southeast Asian countries have a detailed 'action plan', environment ministers hold regular meetings and in Indonesia illegal forest burning offenders are liable to a maximum five years in prison and a 1.5 billion rupiah (RM5.7 million) fine.

Last month, Indonesian vice-president Hamzah Haz promised to take action against those involved in land clearing, including bringing those responsible to justice the latest pledge by Jakarta to go after land clearers.

Hatta Radjasa, the minister for research and technology, has also asked local authorities in Sumatra and Kalimantan to get tough saying provincial authorities were responsible for taking action against offenders, including forest concessionaires.

But the tough talk has not been backed up by action, says Pelangi's Sari. ''Forest fires happen every year but there is no mature plan from the government to overcome the problem,'' he said.

Similarly, environmentalist Dicky Simorangkir added: ''I see no coordination among government agencies to fight forest fires.''

During the most serious haze episode in 1998, the Indonesian government proclaimed that it was clamping down on plantation companies whose land-clearing activities were fueling the smog.

At the time, it summoned 102 firms, mostly big plantation companies, for their alleged involvement in forest fires, but revoked the operating licences of only 23 firms. No one went to jail for these crimes.

So far this year, the government has summoned 46 firms. Critics believe that the pattern of previous years will be repeated, where bribery, corruption and government inaction means that logging firms are rarely punished.

Slash-and-burn farmers 'demonised'

According to a study by the ministry of the environment, semi-nomadic farmers and other forest dwellers contribute almost 70 percent to the haze problem, while holders of forest concessions were responsible for only 30 percent.

But environmental NGOs do not agree and say slash-and-burn farmers are often 'demonised' when looking at the haze issue, even though companies can clear land at much faster rates than them.

They say that large plantation and agricultural firms are behind the large land clearing and exert considerable influence over the responsible government departments, helping them avoid investigation and prosecution.

Sari, the environmentalist, believes that the solution to the haze problem lies at a deeper, local level. He says that more should be done to make local community leaders accountable for fires in their areas, and that limited government-sponsored land clearance programmes should be set up for locals.

Radjasa adds that it is up to the local governments to improve the awareness of farmers through publicity campaigns, ''telling them that burning forests and farmland damages the environment, and that it is against the law and causes numerous problems for human health and transportation''. IPS