[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 01 Sep 1999
Time: 04:37:27
Remote User: -
FOGGY NOTIONS No one benefits from Malaysia's ban on pollution data
PAY ATTENTION, TRAVEL WRITERS. Air pollution is no longer a problem in Malaysia. That faint acrid smell lingering in the air recently was probably a figment of your imagination. The pale yellow stuff on the horizon was little more than a mirage. Anyway, what's wrong with a bit of haze? It is just a normal, natural phenomenon that occurs at certain times of the year, like the monsoon and the tides. Or so some government officials seem to want people to think.
Despite the return of the haze, Environment Minister Law Hieng Ding recently announced that the government would no longer make public Air Pollutant Index (API) readings. To publish the numbers might "drive away the tourists," he said. An ideal bureaucratic solution. For civil servants nothing really exists unless it can be quantified through statistics. Unless what you can see and smell is officially confirmed, it is not there.
To a large extent, Malaysia is more sinned against than sinning. Most of the haze pollution originates as forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra, Indonesia. It then drifts over Malaysia and Singapore. It is not the Malaysians' fault that Jakarta has yet to get a firm grip on illegal slash-and-burn operations within its borders that cause most of the yellowish stuff. But rather than encourage tourists, Kuala Lumpur's rationale, at the very least, shows a certain callousness toward them. The blackout on pollution information may jeopardize not only their vacations but possibly their health.
Malaysian authorities may consider the unfavorable publicity from their ban a lesser evil than the barrage of critical news reports or inquiries about the haze. But in the longer run, such an attitude will be counter-productive. The tourists who do come will, of course, experience the haze. And they will carry word of its unpleasantness back to their home countries, where others may begin to view the pretty brochures put out by Malaysian tourism authorities with greater skepticism.
More important is the impact of the ban on Malaysians themselves. The pollution index is, after all, pretty basic public-health information. Suppressing it is not unlike withholding information about, say, an influenza or cholera epidemic. Ostensibly, such a move may be justified as a bid to prevent public panic. But in most cases, it is usually the lack of reliable information, compounded by its handmaiden, rumor, that causes real fright.
Moreover, it does not make much sense to withhold information on a subject when people can tell something is wrong via their own senses. Such suppression does little to convince either Malaysians or foreign tourists that all is well. It simply forces them to turn to alternative and often less reliable sources of information. Or, it means that the data will be available only to those with connections - or the money to subscribe to private monitoring services.
Malaysians have a fundamental right to know the quality of the air that they are breathing. (After all, the smoke gets in their eyes - and lungs.) By not disclosing the API readings, Kuala Lumpur officials are exposing their compatriots to the risks of breathing in dangerously polluted air. People need to know just how bad the situation is. Only then will they be able to make appropriate decisions on whether to stay indoors, wear masks or simply leave the country for a spell.