Forum focuses on Asean haze
Greenpeace Thailand invites interested people to come and learn about the progress of Asean’s Haze Free Roadmap for a Transboundary Haze-Free Asean by 2020 in a public forum to be held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand tomorrow, 5-8pm.
Held under the topic “A Haze Free Asean By 2020 — Are We There Yet?”, the forum will touch on the smoky haze that cloaks many parts of Southeast Asia every yearand the causes of the regional pollution, covering avariety of factors: peatland drainage, seasonal crop burning, the daily combustion of fossil fuels by the transport sector and industrial emissions by factories.
The forum is divided into sessions, with speakers from many related organisations and institutions. The first will focus on the haze in Indonesia caused by the burning of its forests for the expansion of pulp and oil-palm plantations. It reached parts of the Philippines, aside from Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand.
In September, according to the Indonesi aM inistry of Health,
919,516 people are diagnosed with acute respiratory infections in affected areas, with children and elderly people being the most vulnerable.
The second session will address the transboundary haze pollution in the Mekong Subregion, which was intensified by Myanmar’s maize cash cropping in Shan State. It led to a public health emergency for the local population in Shan State itself and also northern Thailand and northern Laos.
There is no admission fee. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand is on the penthouse of Maneeya Center, Phloenchit.