Singapore Confident Indonesia Can Prevent Smog
4/22/99
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Title: Singapore Confident Indonesia Can Prevent Smog
Source: Reuters Limited
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: April 22, 1999
Byline: Lawrence Yong
(Reuters) - Singapore is confident Indonesia would act to prevent
domestic forest fires which threaten its neighbours with smog in the
coming dry season, a senior government minister said on Thursday.
Singapore's Senior State Minister for the Environment Sidek Saniff
said Indonesia would not neglect the environment issue, despite its
political and economic turmoil.
``I would say, judging by the reports that I have got, for instance
from our last meeting in Brunei, they are more concerned, they are
more aware of the problem,'' Sidek told reporters at an Earth Day
celebration.
``They are really trying their best, so we try to have faith in
them,'' he said.
Much of southeast Asia is going into the dry season, which will last
for the next two or three months.
Environment ministersfrom the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN), who met in Brunei last week, feared a return of smog due to
recent forest fires in Indonesia's Sumatra.
Choking smog in 1997, mostly from fires in Indonesia, plagued
Southeast Asia for months, pushing air pollution to unhealthy levels
in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, hurting tourism and causing health
problems to soar.
Currently ``there are only one or two hotspots in Sumatra,'' Sidek
said.
``We will be of help with anything tha they want but I am quite sure
Indonesians can take care of the problem themselves.''
Singapore, using its advanced monitoring systems, now alerts
Indonesia to hotspots, and was prepared to send in fire-fighting
forces if needed, Sidek said.
Sidek said some 80 percent of the slash and burn forest clearance --
a key element in Indonesia's forest fires -- was carried out for
commercial purposes.
``The culprit is more the companies rather than the individuals,'' he
said.
To help prevent the fires, ASEAN adopted last week a zero-burning
policy to be promoted among plantation owners and timber companies in
Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.