Forest slash and burn has become one of the agriculture issues the world’s been facing right now.
While it's clearly destroying the planet, the consequences impact beyond the environment. Slash-and-burn could impact heavily on the lives of people and wildlife.
Climate change, or better yet, global warming, could be blamed for wildfires, but companies are to blame as the uncontrollable fires are caused by their greedy slash-and-burn.
This problematic slash-and-burn issue has been happening on the Southeast Asia, Indonesia, specifically in Kalimantan, Borneo, where forests and peatlands have been burning for months.
The country has been using slash and burn as the easiest method to clear dense tropical forest and peatland agriculture. However, these current fires are associated with commercial farming.
Indonesia’s continuous wildfire for the past few months is affected heavily by the country’s dry season and then aggravated by a strong El Nino.
The toxic haze that came from this wildfire has impacted not only Indonesia. It has drifted to other neighbourhood countries across Southeast Asia like Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, and more.
According to Current Wildfire there are currently 113 active wildfires burning 65,490 hectares of the land.
This year has burned 1.9 million hectares of land between January and September based on forest monitoring by Nusantara Atlas.
Good air quality ranges from zero to 50. But the worst air quality in Indonesia is sitting at 548 in one of the cities, Palembang–located in South Sumatra, making it classified as Hazardous.
The air quality from this wildfire has extremely impacted residents’ daily activities. The strong and reeking smoke in the air makes it impossible for people to walk outside without being worried about their health.
Local news reports more than 283,000 people reported severe respiratory illnesses, including 63,000 children.
Wildfires are an environmental crisis. It can affect air, water, land, local residents, distant residents and even all businesses operating near to the spreading fires.
When an area is evidently drier and conditions are overall warmer than certain areas, those can be primary locations where fires ignite.
According to a modified “Climate change and wildland fire,” report released by Statistics Canada, temperature and moisture are what influence the behaviour of fire activity.
Wildfires far from Toronto can still have a major impact on people in the city and across the GTA because smoke can travel long distances.
In 2026, wildfire smoke from other parts of Ontario and Canada affected air quality in Southern Ontario, creating hazy skies and making it harder for some people to breathe.
The smoke can cause coughing, headaches, irritated eyes and throat, and can cause worse conditions such as asthma. It can also lead people to limit outdoor activities, sports and exercise.
Children, seniors and people with heart or lung conditions are especially vulnerable. Overall, even when the fires are hundreds of kilometers away, their smoke can affect the health and daily lives of people throughout Toronto and the GTA.
Last summer, Canada was blanketed with hazardous air quality coming from a wildfire that occurred in central Canada mid-July. Environment Canada classified the hazardous conditions to be “very high risk” with the Air Quality Health Index reaching 10+.
Environment Canada advised residents to keep windows and doors closed to reduce smoke exposure as well as urging them to limit time outdoors.
The severe smoke lasted for almost a week, yet it interfered heavily on people’s daily activities.
Wildfire is not the biggest issue that people are concerned about, it’s the way the government handles it.
This toxic wildfire demands immediate action for the government to deal with the fires, protect the communities and restore the air quality.
People are losing their homes, their income, health and livelihood as a whole. Children are growing up where this becomes a cycle turning into a reality and it is not right that this is their childhood they look back on and reflect on.
This tragedy continues to put excessive pressures on firefighters and other first responders involved.
Indonesia, as with every country on the planet, needs to start prioritizing public health, ensuring that they are able to get medical help as soon as possible while also finding a way to extinguish the fire as soon as possible.
People deserve to walk outside without worrying about their health every single day, it’s their right as residents of a country.
An advisory is supposed to be a temporary thing, not something they need to adjust for a long period of time.
Indonesians deserve a better preparation and an action plan.
