HAZE OVER MALAYSIA SET TO STAY

People living in Malaysia and other parts of south-east Asia have been warned that a thick haze filling their skies could last until the end of August.

The pollution is being blamed on smoke from forest fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island and, without rain, the number of fires is rising, officials have said.

• Blucer Dolok Saribu, head of a meteorology, climatology and geophysics agency in Indonesia, said: "There is a potential for the number of fire spots to rise and haze conditions to worsen if there is no rain."
• The fires happen every year in the dry season, but have worsened in the past decade with timber and plantation firms often being blamed for starting fires to clear land.
• One environment campaigner told Al Jazeera on Saturday that "serious action" needs to be taken before billions of dollars worth of damage is caused.
• Faizal Parish, director of the Malaysia-based Global Environment Centre, said: "We have a phenomenon called the El Nino effect which occurs roughly every seven years.
• "This leads to very long droughts that can last up to six or even nine months. However, El Nino just gives the dry conditions. The root causes of the fires are 100 per cent due to human activity; mismanagement of land."
  

Source:Al Jazeera