Asean needs to review transboundary haze response, PM says

Asean needs to review its existing mechanisms for dealing with transboundary haze to prevent adverse impacts on public health, particularly among children and babies, said Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

He said Asean ministers must give the issue serious attention as haze can directly affect people’s health and lives.

“There is room for improvement. I think the Asean ministers must seriously look at it, because this is affecting lives, particularly of children and babies, and if we have seen in Serian, (it) is really concerning,” he told reporters after attending a meeting with staff of the Plantations and Commodities Ministry in Putrajaya today.

Air quality in Serian was reported to have returned to hazardous levels when the monitoring station at the district police headquarters in the area recorded an Air Pollutant Index (API) reading of 302 this morning.

Last Friday, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar declared a haze emergency across the Serian division following air pollution deemed hazardous to public health. The declaration was lifted yesterday.

Anwar, who is also finance minister, stressed that open burning in Indonesia must be thoroughly investigated, including determining the actual cause of fires before action is taken or accusations made against any party.

Asked whether Malaysian companies operating in Indonesia had committed wrongdoing that contributed to the haze, Anwar said Malaysia respected any legal action taken by Indonesian authorities.

“If there are Malaysian companies that are affected (involved), we will give Indonesia space to take action. We will certainly respect the actions there, and we will not defend,” he said.

He stressed that Malaysia would not intervene to protect any company if investigations found it responsible for open burning or other violations of the law in neighbouring countries.

Calls for tougher haze enforcement

Meanwhile, the Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) has warned that the region’s transboundary haze crisis has become a human rights emergency that Asean and its member states must address urgently.

It urged Asean to use the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in Da Nang, Vietnam, this October to close enforcement gaps that have left the region exposed to toxic air for nearly three decades.

APHR also called for a regional legal framework to hold companies accountable for forest fires linked to peatland drainage, commodity-driven deforestation, and agricultural residue burning.

It urged Asean member states to require plantation companies with concessions in fire-prone areas, including peatland and forestland, to publicly disclose concession maps and share them across the region to improve supply-chain transparency.

The group also called for mandatory traceability requirements at every stage of agribusiness and food supply chains to identify commodity origins and address deforestation, crop-residue burning, and transboundary haze at the source.

It further urged Asean to adopt a standardised air-quality indicator across member states, using a common methodology to monitor and track air pollution and guide appropriate action.

- Bernama

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