But development includes wider benefits such as social equity and environmental stability. Entrepreneurs, most of whom live outside Indonesia, are clearing large tracts of forest by burning trees and undergrowth. Driven by profit and aided by weak legislation and enforcement, they are destroying irreplaceable biodiversity and causing smoke and haze pollution that adversely affect the health of Indonesians and people in neighboring countries. Aftermath of a flood in the Philippines. Asia s devastating floods of the past decade, repeated in recent weeks in South Asia, People s Republic of China, and Southeast Asia, are another illustration of environmental mismanagement.
Most authorities blame bad weather for the disasters.
But while nature provides the trigger event, it is humans misuse of natural resources that changes the environment and influences the severity of the floods. Such human-made factors include deforestation, inappropriate engineering infrastructure to control floodwaters, and mismanagement of watersheds. If Asia s governments do not take action to halt the region s rapid environmental degradation, it may soon be too late to reverse the trend. Governments need to prescribe policies to change indi- vidual and institutional behavior to address the root causes of environmental degradation. Three things have to change to reverse the region s environmental decline.