"We
estimate that haze in 2015 resulted in 100,300 excess deaths across Indonesia,
Malaysia and Singapore," says the report,
which was published in Environmental Research Letters journal.
It says this
is more than double the estimated number of deaths as a result of haze in 2006,
with much of the increase due to fires in Indonesia's South Sumatra province.
"Exposure
to air pollution increases the risk of death from a number of ailments
including stroke and respiratory illnesses," one of the researchers from
Harvard University, Dr Shannon Koplitz.
Indonesians were the worst affected with
an estimated 91,600 excess deaths.
However
Indonesia's disaster agency said just 24 people had died due to the 2015 fires,
12 of whom were killed fighting the fires and 12 from respiratory problems as a
result of the haze.
"There
is nothing like that (91,000 premature deaths)," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho from
the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) told Fairfax Media.
"It is
not true. The data is not valid. If there were high numbers of people dead we
would have stated it in our almost daily forest fire press releases last
year."
Last year
the agency estimated that 43 million Indonesians were exposed to the smog in
Sumatra and Kalimantan alone and there were half a million cases of respiratory
tract infections.
Forest fires
are an annual event in Indonesia, caused in part by "slash and burn"
agriculture techniques, where farmers light fires to quickly and cheaply clear
land.
Last year's
dry conditions, exacerbated by the El Nino effect, resulted in the worst haze
in the region since 1997.
Six
Indonesian provinces declared a state of emergency, schools were closed in
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, flights were grounded and warships were put
on standby to evacuate people from the toxic haze.
The fires
strained relations between Indonesia and Singapore, where air pollution levels
also skyrocketed.
"Indonesia's
fires are probably the biggest global environmental disaster of the 21st
century," Erik Meijaard, an Indonesian-based honorary associate professor
at the University of Queensland wrote in The Jakarta
Globe last year.
Greenpeace
Indonesia forest campaigner Yuyun Indradi said on Monday that now
the scale of the death toll was known, failure to act immediately would be
a crime.
"Now
fires are back again," he said. "Industry and government must take
real action to stop forest clearing and peatland drainage for
plantations."
Forestry and
Environmental Ministry spokesman Novrizal told Fairfax Media Indonesia had done
many things to prevent a repeat of last year's haze crisis.
These
included an education campaign about the danger of burning to clear land and a
crackdown on companies found guilty of setting fires.
"A
civil court sentenced a company to pay compensation of about one trillion
rupiah," he said.
"We do
joint patrols, with the TNI (military), police, forestry ministry and local
people in all areas."
He said this
had resulted in a decrease of hotspots around Indonesia by 82 per cent in 2016
compared to the same period last year.
The Harvard
and Columbia university researchers developed a tool to help governments
identify which fires have the highest potential to cause damage to human
health.
"Our
goal with this work is to provide a tool that can help stakeholders make
evidence-based decisions related to fire and land use strategies, even as
extreme haze events are unfolding," Dr Koplitz told Fairfax Media.
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