WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2001

Asean launches blueprint to combat haze in region

JAKARTA (AFP) - ASEAN on Tuesday launched a regional blueprint to avert a repeat of the catastrophic haze of 1997-98 but a local Indonesian official highlighted problems in punishing offenders.

In a book titled "Fire, Smoke, and Haze - the ASEAN Response Strategy," the Association of Southeast Asian Nations outlines the global and regional context of forest fires, its response to the problem and guides to fire and haze management in the region.

The book blames past forest fires mostly on open burning to clear land for planting.

"ASEAN member countries have shown a strong commitment to address the transboundary haze problem on a longer term basis," the grouping's secretary general Rodolfo Severino told guests.

Severino said forest fires and haze that blanketed much of Southeast Asia in 1997 and 1998 had produced "a pall of catastrophic proportions."

ASEAN responded by adopting the Regional Haze Action Plan.

"The loss in terms of agricultural production, transportation, tourism and other economic endeavours has been estimated at more than nine billion dollars.

The cost to human health, loss of biodiversity, destruction of forests, and general environmental degradation is immeasurable," he said.

The book says economic policy in Indonesia, where most of the fires broke out, was partly to blame for the disaster.

"Indonesia's economic policy, which allows for large scale expansion of commercial crops, encourages land speculation and leads to ecological disaster," it says.

 

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