Organizers: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand

Type/Location: Hybrid/Bangkok, Thailand

Description:

As the wet season gets underway, washing out the sooty, humid air, it is easy to forget that just a few weeks ago northern Thailand had on some days the dubious distinction - yet again - of the most polluted air on planet Earth.

On the 14th of each month, NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System generates a map of active fires and thermal anomalies in Southeast Asia. In April, it showed nearly 30,000 hot spots in Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. More than a third were in sparsely populated Laos, and the Shan states of Myanmar were also red hot.

This staggering pollution is not just the product of coal-fired power stations, belching factories and antiquated transport systems; it is directly linked to agriculture and the burning of byproducts – rice straw, maize stems and kernels, sugar cane leaves -- and the burning of forest floors for mushroom collecting and to create grassy areas for free-roaming cattle.

Our panel of experts will look at why this year’s haze has been even worse than previously, the insatiable demand for meat that is driving forest encroachment and maize production, the spread into neighbouring countries of outdated Thai agricultural practices, and the poverty trap most agricultural families and migrant labourers exist in.

Speakers:

Dr Krittaecho Siripassorn, Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health

Decharut Sukkumnoed, member of parliament elect and director of Think Forward Center, Move Forward Party's policy center.

Dr Kanongnij Sribuaiam, associate professor, law faculty, Chulalongkorn University; legislative lead, Thaland CAN (Clean Air Network).

Danny Marks, assistant professor of environmental politics and policy in the school of law and government, Dublin City University.

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