Indonesia's 'Good Palm' drive enflames anger as smoke clouds skies

By Gayatri Suroyo and Bernadette Christina

JAKARTA, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Indonesia is facing a backlashover an online campaign backing palm oil at a time when forestfires, often linked to slash-and-burn land clearance, havespread choking smoke across the region, raising growing concernabout damage to health.

The Southeast Asian country is the world's biggest producerof the edible oil and is often vilified abroad for thedestruction of forests to make way for plantations, and for thefires that are often started to clear the land.

While Indonesia's neighbours complain about the impact ofthe smoke drifting in, the criticism at home, where the smoke isusually much more severe, has been more muted.

But that might be changing, if the reaction to a governmentcampaign launched to support the palm oil industry is anythingto go by.

"We plant palm to fulfil Indonesia's needs, including todevelop biodiesel and to lift Indonesia's hopes," the cheeryGood Palm campaign said on its Twitter account - @SawitBaikID.

But the campaign, launched by the government and the statePalm Crop Estate Fund agency, could not have come at a worsetime.

Fires, at their most serious since 2015 because of an ElNino weather pattern causing an extended dry spell, have beensending clouds of acrid smoke up over Sumatra, parts of Borneoislands and beyond for more than a month.

The government, once again trying to deflect the anger ofits neighbours, has sent in more than 9,000 workers to try tobeat down and douse the flames.

The smoke, or haze as it is known, has forced schools andairports to shut, while tens of thousands of people havesuffered from respiratory problems.

In one widely reported case, a four-month-old girl from ahaze-hit village on Sumatra island died this week. Doctors saidshe bore signs of lung infection, though they have yet to givethe official cause of death.

"The government should stop using the 'palm oil is a veryproductive crop' card to justify their negligence on the poormanagement of existing palm oil plantations," wrote one Twitteruser - @agnarendra.

PUT OUT THE FIRE

Sheany, a journalist based in Bali, who uses only one name,said it was "bizarre" that the authorities were launching theircampaign to make palm oil look good at this time.

"So many Indonesians living in those areas are choking," shesaid.

In another sign of changing attitudes towards palm oil, somesupermarkets in the capital, Jakarta, have begun displayingproducts with "palm oil-free" labels, to the anger of governmentofficials.

Dono Boestami, head of the Palm Crop Estate Fund, defendedthe campaign to support palm oil, noting the "huge contribution"it makes to the economy.

Authorities say fire has scorched 328,000 hectares (810,000acres) of land since January but it is not clear how much ofthat has been to make way for palm plantations.

Greenpeace Indonesia said 80% of cleared forests had beenturned into become palm and pulpwood plantations.

Referring to the Good Palm campaign, Greenpeace called fortighter controls of the palm oil industry.

Environmentalists say poor farmers are often blamed for thefires when the plantation companies egg them on, knowing theycan expand later into land that has been cleared.

Police say many of the fires are started in forest and scrubnext to plantations, which are often untouched.

The chairman of Indonesia's palm oil association, JokoSupriyono, said the companies should not be blamed for firesthey do not start.

"There are reports from our members that fires on theirconcessions were because of widespread fires outside of theconcessions," he told foreign correspondents on Tuesday.

President Joko Widodo has not responded directly to thebacklash. This week, he attended Islamic prayers for rain in anarea shrouded in heavy haze.

"We have done everything we can, but the correct way is toprevent this from ever happening. Whenever there's a fire, itshould be put out," Widodo said in a statement.(Additional reporting by Fransiska Nangoy, Jessica Damiana inJakarta and Krishna N. Das in Kuala LumpurEditing by Ed Davies and Robert Birsel)