Intensified by this year’s super El Niño, fires in Borneo and Sumatra are emitting toxic air for swathes of the population in Indonesia and its neighbours
For months, parts of Indonesia’s Borneo and Sumatra islands have been ablaze. The fires are sometimes lit illegally as a cheap way to clear land for plantations of oil palm, of which Indonesia is the world’s largest producer.
So prevalent is the technique that it even has a special term: slash and burn.
