ASEAN to establish fund to fight fires and smog

ASEAN to establish fund to fight fires and smog

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Southeast Asia is to set up a special fund to finance the fight against devastating forest fires in Indonesia of the kind that choked the region with smog last year, Singapore's environment minister said yesterday.

"We have discussed the concept of an ASEAN fund," Yeo Cheow Tong said at the end of a one-day meeting of environment ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

No estimate had been put on the likely size of the fund and "at the moment we are still talking in terms of trying to obtain donations", Yeo told a news conference.

"Our problem is not setting a limit. Our problem is impressing on the donors prevention is better than cure."

Opening the meeting on Friday, Yeo said Southeast Asia could not afford to let its guard down in the battle against blazes and smog which cost billions of dollars as an economic crisis gripped the region late last year.

"ASEAN cannot afford another fire and haze disaster. A repeat of this disaster will surely aggravate the already bad regional economic situation," he said.

Donors targeted by ASEAN included the United States, already a contributor of some US$6 million to the fire fighting effort, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which plans a US$10 million fund of its own.

Other nations and organizations would also be asked for cash to be channeled into air surveillance operations to identify fires better and snuff them out before they become seriously damaging.

Air surveillance, although costly, is an effective fire fighting tool and was one of the main ministerial recommendations to beat fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan and avert a recurrence of disaster-level blazes.

The ministers also called on ASEAN governments to change laws and include provisions to blame land owners for any fires on their property as an added deterrence.

Yeo said recent heavy rains which had put out fires in East Kalimantan, Indonesia's side of Borneo, were in danger of diverting attention away from the need to prevent fresh fires starting with the return of the dry season later this month.

"In fact, over the past few days, fires have been detected in some parts of Sumatra. It is important that we take firm and decisive measures to put out these fires and prevent new ones from developing," he told the ministers.

Fires are started by plantation owners and farmers to clear land for planting during the dry season. Last year, vastly worsened by a searing drought, smoke from fires in Indonesia spread over much of the region.

Sumatra, the huge Indonesian island next to Singapore and Malaysia, was the source of much of the choking smoke which caused widespread health problems and economic damage.

The smog caused $4.4 billion in damage and wiped out five million hectares (12 million acres) of forest, agricultural land and bush -- equivalent in size to Costa Rica.

Early this year, fires destroyed 500,000 hectares of bush and forest in East Kalimantan.

Yeo's call was also echoed by environment experts who said they were afraid the recent rains would cloud the authorities' eyes and take the issue off the front burners.

"We hope the attention doesn't die away because the fires of 1997 and 1998 have gone out. This should be seen as a long-term, chronic problem," said Timothy Jessup, senior policy advisor of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Indonesia.