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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Without silver linings
By Mariz Tadros
photo: Antoune Albert
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Earlier this week saw a full moon though the odds are if you were in Cairo you would not have noticed. For the city has been shrouded in smog for close to a week now, and according to the Egyptian Meteorological Authority, the suffocating "smoke" cloud is expected to continue to hang over Cairo until tomorrow at least.
And it isn't just in the capital. Residents of Qalyubiya and Giza governorates also complained of the suffocating cloud. And while the aviation authority says there is no threat to air traffic, health hazards for those with respiratory and cardiac problems have been noted.
Initially, official fingers pointed, almost unanimously, at farmers burning rice-straw and cotton stalks in the fields of Qalyubiya and Sharqiya. A media campaign was launched to show how the burning of the crops did not just pollute the immediate environments of those governorates, but also polluted Cairo's atmosphere.
The credibility of this pronouncement was soon called into question, however, triggering a swell of speculation and rumour. Vague and contradictory official statements were grist to the rumour mills. On Monday, the public was told the "cloud" had definitely lifted. And it seemed that it had. Cairo's collective sigh of relief ended in a choking fit of coughing, however. The "cloud" was back. In fact, it had never left. The farmers, it now appeared, were a convenient scapegoat. After all, the rice-straw burning has been going on for 10 years.
Magdi Allam, an environment specialist, explains that the " polluted cloud" is a combination of fog and smoke. "Smog happens when particles are trapped in the air and do not move because of the absence of wind". He emphasised there is no way to prevent smog from occurring or of predicting its occurrence.
He did point out, though, that since open fires are an obvious source of smoke, burning rice-straw, though not the only cause of the smog, was an obvious "provoking factor". In places like Cairo, he conceded, where high levels of air pollution already exists, smoke from any open fire contributes to the problem.
In a bid to find the source of the pollution, Nadia Makram Ebeid, minister of environment, went on a three-hour helicopter ride over Giza, Qalyubiya and Cairo, courtesy of the Ministry of Defence.
In Tuesday's Al-Ahram she suggested that the problem had several sources, and that the haphazard burning of garbage in and around Cairo was as much to blame as the farmers' activities. The minister pointed out that she had observed at least seven shanty areas where garbage burning operations were taking place, and also referred to the polluting smoke emitted by factories in north Cairo. She stressed that a plan will be implemented to deal with the open fires.
The minister's more measured approach to the source of the pollution came a little too late for the beleaguered farmers, however. The governor of Qalyubiya, Sabri El-Beyali, had already issued a warning to all farmers that those who burn rice straws or cotton stalks would face charges, which is in flagrant contradiction with statements made by the Ministry of Agriculture which urges all farmers to burn their cotton stalks to protect their crop from damaging pests. "The governor tells us don't burn, and if we do, they will punish us, and the Ministry of Agriculture insists that if we don't they won't take our crops. What is going on, are they just out to get us?" asked Mohamed Qandil, a rice-growing farmer.
Ahmed Metwalli, who has cultivated his five feddans of rice paddies for as long as he remembers, has been rice straw burning for at least ten years and has no intention of stopping now. "They can come and do as many police reports as they like, I will not abide by this new decree because what they are doing is unjust. It shows they have no consideration for our livelihoods." He explained that after the rice has been collected, the straw is spread across the land and ignited for two reasons. It kills or scares away insects and acts as an excellent fertiliser.
Farmers protested that the burning of the rice straw cannot be responsible for the "dark cloud" because a whole feddan takes no more than half an hour to burn and it is not done collectively.
Salama Ahmed Salama, Ahram columnist and head of the Society of Writers on Environment and Development had a question or two to ask in his Tuesday column about the official response -- or absence thereof -- to the cloud of black smoke: Where are the more than thirty meteorological stations in Cairo that are supposed to be measuring the levels of air pollution and harmful emissions and where are the officials in the governorates of Giza and Cairo who are supposed to oversee the burning of the garbage and its disposal? In a nutshell: "If what has happened in the last few days is not an environmental catastrophe, then what is it?"
