I assess the population health effects in Malaysia of air pollution from a widespread series of fires that occurred in Indonesia between April and November of 1997. I describe how the fires occurred and why the associated air pollution was so widespread and long lasting. The main objective is to uncover any mortality effects and to assess how large and important they were. I also investigate whether the mortality effects were persistent or whether they represented a short-term, mortality-harvesting effect. The results show that the smoke haze from the fires had a deleterious effect on the health of the population in Malaysia.

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Forest fires, air pollution, and mortality in Southeast Asia

Mangrove forests provide a range of ecological and socio-economic benefits in coastal zones throughout the world's tropical regions. Yet the conversion of mangrove forest, due in particular to aquaculture development, is occurring at a dramatic rate. Drawing on insights and concepts offered by political ecology and complex systems, processes of mangrove forest conversion and aquaculture development in the coastal zone of Banawa District, Central Sulawesi, are analyzed. This is accomplished by exploring: (1) the comparative benefits of aquaculture developments and intact mangrove forest ecosystems; (2) a policy narrative supportive of intensified aquaculture development at the expense of common property resource systems in the region; and (3) the manner in which this narrative interacts with cross-scale administrative, institutional, economic, socio-cultural and property rights dynamics. The analysis suggests that policy and management issues aimed at conserving mangrove forests and alleviating the ecological and socio-economic impacts of aquaculture development in the region are not simply a matter of government formulating, enforcing and monitoring regulations that guard against mangrove forest conversion. Rather, there is a need to formulate, propose, implement and monitor strategies that contest existing policy narratives and challenge entrenched economic interests and power relationships.

Socio-institutional dynamics and the political ecology of mangrove forest conservation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

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Agroforestry, elephants, and tigers: Balancing conservation theory and practice in human-dominated landscapes of Southeast Asia

Space, identity politics and resource control in Indonesia's transmigration programme

Throughout history, many governments have introduced policies to unite diverse groups through a shared sense of national identity. However, intergroup relationships at the local level are often slow to develop and confounded by spatial sorting and segregation. We shed new light on the long-run process of nation building using one of history's largest resettlement programs. Between 1979 and 1988, the Transmigration program in Indonesia relocated two million voluntary migrants from the Inner Islands of Java and Bali to the Outer Islands, in an effort to integrate geographically segregated ethnic groups. Migrants could not choose their destinations, and the unprecedented scale of the program created hundreds of new communities with varying degrees of diversity. We exploit this policy-induced variation to identify how diversity shapes incentives to integrate more than a decade after resettlement. Using rich data on language use at home, marriage, and identity choices, we find stronger integration in diverse communities. To understand why changes in diversity did not lead to social anomie or conflict, we identify mechanisms that influence intergroup relationships, including residential segregation, cultural distance, and perceived economic and political competition from migrants. Overall, our findings contribute lessons for the design of resettlement policies and provide a unique lens into the intergenerational process of integration and nation building.

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J. M. Hardjono

Papers

Transmigration in Indonesia