At 20:29 30-09-97 -0800, B. Diamond wrote: >Nelson > >Perhaps the more pertinant question is where are the timber and agricultural >coporations responsibly for setting the fires? Do they not care about the >health and well-being of the people of Indonesia, or are they only taking >advantage of an extended El-Nino caused dry season in which to cheaply clear >land for intensive (and very profitable) logging and agricultual operations? > >Not only have these large multinational corporations put literally millions of >people at serious health risk, but in an effort to conceal their narcisism >they have been busy placing the blame of the fires on the native people who >"...lacking the appropriate understanding of the fire regimine and climatic >change have allowed the fires to burn out of control." The fact of the matter >is that the vast majority of the fires were intentionally set by large >corporations hoping to clear as much land as possible, regardless of the >externalities of their actions. > >BD Dear Bret, The issue, as ever, is possibly not pure black and white. Even from the poor quality infra-red satellite images provided by the EU to the Republic of Indonesia on the location of the forest fires, we can learn that many of the fires appear not to be linked to multinational corporations. It would appear that slash and burn agriculture from transmigrated and indigenous peoples, e.g. at locations that are essentially of non-interest to MCs, provides some considerable contribution to the overall problem. Under the prevailing dry conditions it would seem that any fire had the potential to 'get out of hand'. Could you please enlighten the members of this list on your analysis that "The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the fires were intentionally set by large corporations hoping to clear as much land as possible, regardless of the externalities of their actions." ? Yours, Paul Romeijn http://www.treemail.nl
Mail converted by
MHonArc 1.1.0