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Focuses on the mid-1997 forest fires in Indonesia. Cause of the fires; Information on the fires; Countries where the smoke from the fires spread to; Effect the smoke had on persons in Indonesia and other countries it spread to; Adoption of a Regional Haze Action Plan by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Environment Ministers in late December, 1997.

This article maintains that a key reason for the failure to slow deforestation is the inadequacy of conventional explanations. These provide important insights into the specific agents and underlying causes of deforestation, but do not sufficiently explain the process that leads to the destruction of tropical forests. To better understand this process, it is necessary to examine the politics which shape and drive the various factors contributing to deforestation. In the case of Indonesia, a centralized military‐dominated leadership, attitudes of the Javanese decision makers, institutionalized corruption, an emphasis on stability and national integration, a political system which mainly benefits the elite, and financial and technical support from international institutions and Northern countries, especially Japan, encourage deforestation, while protecting those interests that exploit the forests. This political context increases the environmental impact of land clearing for agriculture, large‐scale development projects, logging, poverty, population growth, and poorly designed government policies. As a result, Indonesia continues to lose nine hundred thousand hectares of forest every year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]