Ministers and vice ministers from five of the 10 member states of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Wednesday agreed to form a technical
task force to develop a ground and forest fire monitoring platform at the
ministerial steering committee level.
The agreement was reached during
the 14th Meeting of the Sub-Regional Ministerial Steering Committee (MSC) on
Transboundary Haze Pollution held in Bali on Wednesday, an Asean statement
said.
“The Ministers agreed to the
proposal for the formation of an MSC Technical Task Force to develop a fire
monitoring platform,” the statement said.
The meeting was attended by
environment ministers from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and the
vice-minister of natural resources and environment from Thailand.
The meeting noted that the onset
of the traditional rainy season around late November or early December will in
all likelihood put an end to, or greatly reduce, hot spot activity.
Hot spots are areas of high
temperatures shown through satellite imaging, that have increased potential to
ignite into ground and forest fires.
“The MSC countries agreed to
maintain vigilance and to continue the subregion’s strong commitment and steady
progress toward tackling land and forest fires, and minimizing the spread of
transboundary smoke haze,” the statement said.
The ministers also agreed to
explore the sharing of digital concession maps, as they acknowledged that
greater transparency is required to make plantation companies and land owners
responsible for the haze.
The owners need to be held
accountable and work to employ the best management practices in land clearing
activities, the statement said.
They also agreed to undertake
more stringent measures to prevent such problems, while instituting enforcement
measures against offenders.
Extensive ground and forest fires
— especially on Sumatra and Borneo — during the dry season have resulted in
serious air pollution in the region.
Several times in the past, the
smoky pollution has blanketed the sky over a large swath of area in Southeast
Asia, causing traffic and health hazards.
Governments have blamed the
continuing practice of land clearing by burning for most of the haze, although
burning peat veins in the soil is also seen as a contributing factor to the
smoke.
Indonesia has outlawed land
clearing by fire, but enforcement has been weak in the face of inadequate
manpower and finances.
The meeting concluded that
Thailand will chair the MSC in 2013.
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