Sir

Your News Feature “Borneo is burning” (Nature 432, 144–146; 2004) links the mismanagement of peat swamp forests in Central Kalimantan to the appallingly destructive fires that leave the region blanketed in haze and release massive amounts of carbon dioxide whenever there is a substantial drought.

This informative account of the environmental problems associated with Suharto's Mega Rice Project, and recent attempts to rectify them, unfortunately reinforces a misperception that these fires are largely an Indonesian problem, and thus that their ultimate causes lie in the particulars of Indonesian politics.

During the 1997–1998 El Niño event described in the News Feature, drought and fires were widespread in the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah and the independent state of Brunei Darussalam, as well as in Kalimantan. Also, fires were not restricted to peat swamps, as the Indonesian experience suggests, but occurred in agricultural areas, logged forest and even primary rainforest — although peat fires tend to burn for longer and release much larger amounts of smoke and carbon dioxide.

As someone who witnessed these fires and experienced the debilitating effects of the resulting haze, the focus on Indonesia has always disappointed me. If the problem of burning in Borneo and elsewhere in southeast Asia is to be properly addressed, governments and donors in the region must first recognize the widespread nature of the problem.

Indeed, the principal causes are not difficult to identify: they are environmental mismanagement, in particular the development of peat-swamp areas for agriculture (as mentioned in the News Feature), oil-palm plantations or urban expansion; increased access to formerly remote areas, often as a result of logging; and lack of law enforcement because of governments' reluctance or inability to assert authority at a local level.

Until these problems are addressed, fire and haze will continue to plague the region whenever there is a prolonged drought. The ongoing massive destruction of natural environments and associated carbon dioxide emissions make this a global issue of considerable urgency.