Indonesia Green - ‘Burn Baby Burn Disco Inferno’

L.Green , R.Kersey – sung by the Trammps (or was the Bee Gees ?) on the Saturday night Fever album.

It might well be the theme song for Indonesia in the dry season.

My first posting in Indonesia was in a small Kampung (Village) called Jabung.
Jabung is miles from nowhere. Way out in the scrub. They have tigers and elephants roaming around out there.
I was sent to check on a cattle feedlot project (now there’s some serious green house gas generation right there for you, but that’s another story for later.) I know jack about cows. I’ve milked one once and been chased up a tree by a pack off young bulls, but that’s about as much experience I’ve had with them. I landed the job through connections and because I had some high school Bahasa. When I found out there was only one person who spoke broken English in Jabung, I wished I’d paid more attention in class. 6 months in the scrub was a good teacher though and I learned to speak the lingo pretty fluently and more importantly got a good handle on local customs and an insight into Islam.

When I first arrived here, I was still in my pro-active student 20’s. Australia had just entered a period of almost fanatic environmental awareness. Supermarkets were introducing green hessian bags to replace the plastic ones, all houses were being issued with new ‘wheelie’ bins with dual compartments for recyclable waste and there were nation-wide restrictions on the use of water and hours for burning rubbish. (Now any type of back-yard burning without a permit is strictly forbidden)

You can imagine my horror to walk down a main street in Bandar Lampung one afternoon and see people happily attending their small road side fires consisting of raked leaves and the occasional car tire. Lampung is actually a pretty clean city, all things considered. They have even one national awards for being a clean city. Compared to Jakarta it’s a relatively small city in the south of Sumatera. Burning off is a way of life. Daily routine. The introduction of plastic bags and bottles, not long before I arrived here hasn’t helped things. In Lampung they burn them. In Jakarta they are happy just to let them pile up on the roadside or clog the gutters and sewers eventually contributing to annual floods.

Floods happen in the wet season. This is a tropical country and things do grow. Drop a seed in the ground and by next wet season you will have a small tree. At least that was a common expression since anyone can remember. Now things are starting to change. The buzz word in everyone-who-learns-Englishs’ vocabulary is GLOBAL WARMING. By the end of the wet season there is a lot of foliage , leaves, grass, lying around. So the logical conclusion, come Dry season is to burn it. Makes room for planting veggies, helps drive away the mozzies and while you’re at it get rid of the household trash which consists mainly of plastic bags from the warung or supermarket. One bag per item. I’ve watched check-out girls put an individual apple, already in a plastic bag, into another plastic bag – purely automatic force of habit. “What about the environment ?” I ask. “Have a nice day Mister, you are very handsome.” They reply…..

Now, the dry season of 2007, in Java at least, where I’m based, was really, really dry. Longer and drier than expected. I saw coastal regions , such as Cilegon ; parched brown land, the grass had not only died but completely vanished. Coconut trees were dying. Actually dying from drought. Something that puzzled local farmers. Sure it gets hot in the dry season but the coconut trees are usually ok until the first rain. Farmers burn what there is to burn, for cooking and to clear land for the next harvest. This is what they have been doing for centuries. In Jakarta they burn as well. Maybe because some of them were farmers who came to the bright lights to look for a better life and were never able to leave. Others, to get rid of rubbish. Yet more others to pay homage to the Bee Gees and simply burn baby burn.

How much does this impact on the environment ? For the last month I have been unable to sleep at night because of sinus trouble. I’m worried about my little girl. I go outside at 2 in the morning and the whole place is shrouded in a haze of smoke. I’ve tried talking to the neighbor who maintains a small banana patch and does a fair bit of burning. Kindly, he has resolved to do his burning during the day and put out the fire before he goes home. The problem is everybody is burning. The drivers of the local minibuses end their daily shift and stop at a roadside warung for a game of cards and kretek cigarettes. Invariably, one of them will pull an old spare tire out of his mini bus and throw it on the fire to smolder for the next few days.

How do I get through to them ? “Excuse me, oh yeah Hi there. Um, I live down the road and my bedroom with my little baby inside, is full of smoke. We can’t sleep.” They will ask me to sit down and join them for a cigarette. I said to a man I met on a work site once. “I gave up smoking a year ago.” He looked puzzled and simply asked “Why !” I have to be careful in how I approach this. It may seem I’m accusing the drivers of a bad deed, over which I am angry at them and this might cause them to ‘loose face’. In such a situation they may retaliate by burning more tires or simply punching me in the face. More likely the first , as I’ve rarely encountered violence on a personal level in my twenty years here.

Yes smoke and pollution are pet hates of mine. The most frustrating thing though is watching campaigns in western countries on “How you too can save the environment !” Turn your light out at night and stop global warming ! What difference is it going to make ! I am living in a city of 20 million people. That’s more than the entire population of Australia. And people are setting fire to what ever they can lay their hands on. We have SuperMalls with enough florescent lighting to power a small country town in Australia. And the lights are on day and night.

Blog number 2. It didn’t take me long to get into paranoid power drive. Solution ? To me it’s obvious. Education. Awareness through government campaigns on T.V. just like we had 20 years ago. “Do The Right Thing.” But who will step up to the plate ?