Air Quality Index (AQI) already looking bad for Chiang Mai

Every year that passes, all of us that live up here in Chiang Mai have a hope that this year will be different. We live believing, totally in vain, that the government will finally come through on their promises of preventing what we all know is causing the horrible air quality that exists in the north and in particular, here in Chiang Mai.

The crops are being burned and the underbrush is also being burned in the search for mushrooms that farmers will sell at markets.

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It is tragic and humorous each year when the government makes these statements about how these burning practices are going to be banned this year, but they say this every year and yet they continue year after year. I don't know why they even bother making these announcements because I have been here for more than 2 years now, have heard it each of those years and the people who have been here longer just joke about it at this point because the same promises have been made for as long as anyone that I know has been here. It is not a serious declaration on the part of the government and it isn't like it is difficult to find the perpetrators since you can see the fires burning from the valley below every single night. Yet no one goes and does anything about it.

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Things are only going to get much worse too if last year is any indicator of what this year will be like. Chiang may can be expected to have an AQI at least double this bad in by this time next month.