Great haze II - the blame game starts

It’ll be interesting to see which companies get investigated and possibly blamed for contributing to SE Asia's second great haze. The recently announced Indonesia list of names being investigated coincides with WRI's report which uses NASA data on fires overlaid on plantation concession maps (yellow highlighted names).

Foreign-owned and foreign-based Indonesian companies seem to be the focus of the first set of names announced. More companies will be named in days to come, presumably to include the locally based Indonesian names.

The Indonesian government had identified 8 Malaysian and 2 Singaporean based companies behind the forest burning in Sumatera.  They are under investigation.

Malaysia-owned:

1. PT Langgam Inti Hiberida [KLAU RIVER ENT SDN BHD]
2. PT Bumi Rakksa Sejati, 
3. PT Tunggal Mitra Plantation [SIME DARBY]
4. PT Udaya Loh Dinawi,
5. PT Adei Plantation [KLK]
6. PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa [*NOT OWNED BY WILMAR - updated 23 June 2013]
7. PT Multi Gambut Industri,
8. PT Mustika Agro Lestari

Singapore-based:

1. Asia Pulp & Paper 
2. APRIL         

WRI's analysis with NASA fire data is worth looking at. Weblink: http://insights.wri.org/news/2013/06/peering-through-haze-what-data-can-tell-us-about-fires-indonesia.

WRI's analysis of NASA fire alert data during the recent period, finds that 48% of the fires were outside of concession areas, 27% in timber plantations, 20% in oil palm areas, 4% in protected areas and 1% in logging areas. The high proportion (nearly half) outside of concession areas differs from NGO assessments of an earlier SE Asian haze episode which only attributed 20% of "blame" on smallholder farmers. Does this imply that plantation practices have improved?

WRI provides a top 15-17 list with ranking of concession companies by the number of fire alerts in their areas. The oil palm list and the timber plantation lists are as follows: