Anwar Ibrahim Urges ASEAN to Address Haze from Indonesian Forest Fires

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim believes that ASEAN needs to review existing mechanisms for handling transboundary haze issues to avoid adverse impacts on public health. Anwar stated that ASEAN ministers need to give serious attention to this issue because haze can directly affect people’s lives, especially infants and children.

“There is still room for improvement. I think ASEAN ministers need to pay serious attention to this matter because it impacts lives, especially children and infants. If we look at the situation in Serian (Sarawak), it is indeed very worrying,” Anwar said, as reported by BERNAMA in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

Anwar, who also serves as Finance Minister, made these remarks to the media after attending a meeting with staff from the Ministry of Plantation and Commodities in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Air quality in Serian, Sarawak, was reported to have returned to dangerous levels, with monitoring stations at the local District Police Headquarters (IPD) recording an Air Pollutant Index (API) of 302, categorised as hazardous, on Tuesday morning.

Last Friday, the King of Malaysia, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ibrahim, declared a haze emergency across the Serian region following much-needed public health concerns, before the declaration was lifted on Monday.

Regarding the issue of open land burning in Indonesia, the Malaysian Prime Minister believes the matter must be thoroughly investigated, including identifying the true causes of the fires before any action is taken against any parties. When asked if any Malaysian companies operating in Indonesia had committed offences contributing to the haze, Anwar stated that Malaysia respects all legal actions taken by Indonesian authorities.

“If any affected Malaysian companies are involved, we will allow Indonesia to take action. We will certainly respect the actions taken there and we will not defend such actions,” he said. He emphasised that Malaysia would not interfere with or protect any company if investigations prove they are responsible for open burning or other legal violations in neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile, the ASEAN Parliament for Human Rights (APHR) previously warned that the transboundary haze crisis in ASEAN has become a human rights emergency that must be addressed immediately by ASEAN and its member states. The APHR urged ASEAN members to consider the worsening haze as a human rights emergency and to utilise the Conference of the Parties to the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, to be held in Da Nang, Vietnam, this October, to address law enforcement weaknesses that have caused the region to face air pollution for nearly three decades.

Among other points, the APHR also urged ASEAN member states to develop a regional legal framework to ensure corporate entities are held accountable for forest fires caused by peatland drainage, deforestation driven by commodity activities, and agricultural waste burning. The APHR also called for all plantation companies with concessions in fire-prone landscapes, including peatlands or forest areas, to be required to disclose and publish concession maps to be shared with all ASEAN member states to increase transparency in their supply chains.

Furthermore, the APHR urged ASEAN member states to establish traceability requirements at every stage of the agribusiness and food industry supply chains to identify the origin of commodities and reduce the risks of deforestation, crop residue burning, and transboundary haze at the source. The APHR also stated that ASEAN needs to reach an agreement on uniform air quality indicators to be used across all member states to monitor and track air pollution using the same methodology and to take appropriate action.

Spokesperson for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vahd Nabyl A. Mulachela, stated that Indonesia is coordinating with ASEAN countries affected by the haze from forest and land fires. Haze from forest and land fires in Kalimantan has once again become a transboundary issue after smoke enveloped several regions in Malaysia and the Philippines. Malaysia is urging ASEAN to strengthen the prevention of transboundary haze after 11 regions recorded unhealthy air quality, with the API in Serian reaching 190.