Environmental and public-health advocates from Singapore, Malaysia, and around the world have been sternly calling on the Indonesian government to strengthen its policies on forest fires, pressuring it in September to ratify a 13-year-old regional agreement on cross-border haze, reported the Guardian.
"Indonesia has already carried out operations for the prevention, mitigation of forest fires and haze, and recovery activities, at the national level," the country's parliament said in a statement, according to the Guardian. "But, to handle cross-border pollution, Indonesia and other Asian nations recognize that prevention and mitigation need to be done together," it said.
The "together" part might be key, as Greenpeace points out that companies that own plantations on Indonesian islands are not necessarily Indonesian.
"Of course all the fires are coming from Indonesia, but Singapore is enjoying the 'deforestation economy' of Indonesia as a financial center," Bustar Maitar, head of Indonesia Forest Campaign at Greenpeace International told the Times. "And there are many Malaysian palm oil companies operating in Indonesia, and Singaporean companies are there as well," he pointed out.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment