SINCE the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.
Asia | South-East Asia’s smog
Unspontaneous combustion
Forest fires bring record levels of air pollution; and the end is not in sight
|JAKARTA AND SINGAPORE
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Unspontaneous combustion”
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