SAM: Malaysia must lead efforts for haze-free Asean

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) has called on Asean member countries to help make the region free of haze.

Its president, Meenakshi Raman, said the government should lead efforts to tackle the source of the problem — forest fires in Indonesia — and put a stop to it.

“We need to make a haze-free Asean a reality and not a pipe dream,” she said yesterday.

She said there were several steps Asean member countries must take to tackle the issue.

“First, there must be a clear understanding about the systemic causes of the forest fires and the corporate activities that are largely responsible for them.”

She said effective action must be taken to stop unsustainable forestry and plantation activities.

She said Asean mechanisms of cooperation must be improved to be effective, including through establishing the Asean Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control (ACCT-HPC).

“Also, there must be willingness for Malaysia and other Asean countries to ensure that corporations owned by their citizens are not involved in destructive and unsustainable activities abroad.”

She hoped urgent measures would be taken by the Indonesian authorities to halt forest fires, as data from the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre had shown that the majority of hotspots were in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

“The recurrence of haze raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution that came into effect in 2014 and over the implementation of the Roadmap on Asean Cooperation Towards Transboundary Haze Pollution Control. Asean’s vision of a haze-free region by 2020 now seems like an impossible task.

“It has to be acknowledged that the Asean agreement lacks enforcement mechanisms or instruments for dispute resolution and is, therefore, rather weak and not effective enough. It is premised mainly on promoting cooperation among Asean member states and expects each country to undertake efforts to prevent forest fires without infringing on the sovereignty of a member state.

“Given its inherent weakness, more effective measures are needed urgently, including expediting the establishment and operationalisation of the ACCT-HPC in Indonesia to intensify cooperation and action to combat problems.”