TRANSBOUNDARY HAZE POLLUTION
WEEK 3: TRANSBOUNDARY HAZE POLLUTION
WHAT
IS TRANSBOUNDARY HAZE POLLUTION?
Transboundary Haze Pollution is one of ASEAN’s agreement. This agreement was produced in June 2002, held in Siem Reap, Cambodia. All ASEAN member states have ratified the agreement, which went into effect in 2003. The agreement includes provisions for monitoring, assessment and prevention, technical cooperation and scientific research, mechanism of coordination, lines of communication and simplified customs and immigration procedures for disaster relief. The term of Transboundary Haze Pollution occurred because of the burning of plants, lands of jungle, crops by the farmer, estate owners and logging companies mostly in Indonesia has polluted this region atmosphere. In addition, neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand have negatively impact by Indonesia’s action. There are the contributing factors to this problem such as Slash and burn. In Indonesia, slash and burn is a common practice among farmers and land developers. For the past 25 years, this practice has occurred almost every year, resulting in a regional problem that became serious between 2001 and 2005. Proponents prefer this practice because it revitalizes the soil.
Figure 1: Practice of Slash and burn in Indonesia
WHAT EFFECTIVENESS OF TRANSBOUNDARY HAZE POLLUTION IN HANDLING OF SMOKE?
“WHAT”
The effectiveness of Transboundary Haze Pollution is that can control,
prevent and mitigate land and forest by creating smokes or air pollution that
can give effect towards others ASEAN countries especially neighboring country
Malaysia and Singapore. In order to curb the issue which is air pollution in
the Southeast Asia Region, in 2002 all the ASEAN members agree to formulate the
ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. It is a national effort to
mitigate and prevent haze pollution. The effectiveness of this agreement can be
seen through the establishment of Transboundary Haze Pollution which can help
the country to control and monitor air pollution from being spread that can
lead the changes of temperature, increased the level of carbon dioxide and also
climate change. The expected outcome from this agreement is we want making some
changes towards the behavior of individuals in ASEAN members especially
Indonesia for not cleaning their land by burning the land. It will become a
serious issue because the creation of thick cloud smoke or dangerous substances
which enter the atmosphere will contribute to others problems such as environmental
degradation, disruption of human health, and a reduced environmental quality. This
effectiveness of the existing of Transboundary Haze pollution Policy also can help
in strengthening the cooperation of regional globally with ASEAN country which they
can put an effort and focus to curb the issues of haze problem in Indonesia.
This is because Indonesia is one of the countries that contribute largely affect
haze pollution due to the open burning and without proper control. Forest and
land fires made by Indonesian are one of the global environmental pollution
activities that disrupt the survival and economic operations especially
Malaysia and Singapore. This issue in Indonesia makes all ASEAN members opened
their eyes and response because of the haze pollution that will give danger to
them especially ASEAN's regional stability. Because of that, all the ASEAN
nations have agreed to widely used and strengthen the national policies and
plans to curb and control those activities by creating and emphasizing the
Transboundary Haze Pollution. Apart from that, the aim of ASEAN Agreement on
Transboundary Haze Pollution is they also wanted to control and change the
behavior of individuals in all ASEAN countries that had approved this
agreement. The formation of ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution
includes some stages. Based on record, the first meeting was held on 1990 in
Kuala Lumpur and were attended by the Ministry of Environment of ASEAN member
countries. This agreement can be regarded as a form of response from all the
ASEAN member regarding the issue to control as well as to manage the issue of environment
and sustainable development. This is a best action taken that had been made to
give benefit for ASEAN people as we know that the haze can cause problem to the
people such as health and economic issues.
“HOW”
Forest and land fires especially happened in Indonesia is one of the
environmental pollutions that will cause problems in term of health and
economic especially for the nearest ASEAN countries Indonesia like Malaysia and
Singapore. To curb the cross-border haze pollution from forest fires which
become one of serious problems and repeatedly happened every year, ASEAN has
made an effective agreement between Indonesia, Malaysia and Indonesia as mutual
cooperative in order to make some improvement of smoke and fire management
systematically. Indonesia has agreed to collaborate together in order to
overcome those problems by signing the Transboundary Haze Pollution Policy. The
objective of this agreement is to strengthen the internal relation among the
ASEAN members as well as to work on some policies that will become as guideline
to monitor and prevent the haze pollution issue. This will be done through the
information exchange, consultation, research and monitoring. To make this
happened, all the ASEAN members agreed to sign this agreement and work together
in tackling this haze pollution issue which can give the big impact towards
health and economic issue to the other countries. Furthermore, this agreement
is containing with the five measurements which are monitoring and assessment,
making a prevention and preparedness, national and joint emergency response,
procedures for deployment of people, materials, and equipment across borders
and also technical cooperation and scientific research. The action plan will
serve a systematic, intervention, and time-bound framework for collaborative
efforts to control transboundary haze pollution in the ASEAN zone, which aim for
reaching an objective of a Transboundary Haze-Free ASEAN by 2020. There are
eight key strategies that has been highlighted to achieve the vision. Besides
that, the effectiveness of this agreement also shown when the ASEAN able to
create and adopted Zero Burning Policy. This regulation is carried out to give
the guideline on how to clearing land to avoid the creation of cross boarder
haze. ASEAN effectively has brought out the agencies that responsible regarding
some issue such as environment ministers, NGO and forest entrepreneurs to
discuss in order to implementing no burning policy. ASEAN Agreement on
Transboundary Haze pollution has created a lot of strategic components in order
to achieve the objectives of the agreement effectively and as a guideline for
the establishment. The Strategic Plan of Action on Environment (1999-2004) was developed
by ASEAN countries to address haze pollution that crossed international
borders. ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution that includes 32
Articles which consists of provisions, report of cooperation and actions in
tackling cross-border forest fires and haze disasters. Based on article
CHALLENGES
OF ASEAN AGREEMENT ON TRANSBOUNDARY HAZE POLLUTION
On top of that, the policy of this Transboundary Haze Pollution quite
difficult to implement because the citizen did not have the awareness about
this issue. Agreement on ASEAN Transboundary Haze Pollution which expected to
change the behavior of the individuals also cannot be done. It gives the
critical challenge to the government itself especially in Indonesia. It is
because the farmers or the land developers practice the slash and burn
techniques. At the same time, the large corporations have employed the farmers
on behalf of them to clear the land to do the plantation. It becomes more
complicated because of the mismanagement and corruption.
Furthermore, based on the article has stated that during June 2013 haze period, mostly burning land were within large agro-commercial plantation. However, small-scale local communities and farmers was blamed and claimed that they are strongly responsibility for these fires as they were residing near or within the large agro-commercial community. This shows that certain citizens of Indonesia did not seriously wants to prevent burning land but indeed put blame to others when there is burning land happen. Besides that, logistical problems and obsolete fire-fighting equipment has become one of the challenges to make ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution become successful. Moreover, fire is easily to spread and become bigger when burning land or fire happen because fire-fighting equipment that provided are obsolete and not sophisticated. Meaning that, the area of burned land are big which took a long time to remove fire by using obsolete fire-fighting equipment. On top of that, employees have lack of training and development make effort to enforce the law and policy become more challenging to achieve.
CONCLUSION
In a conclusion, Transboundary Haze Pollution occurred because of the cross-border smoke pollution that happen in Asia. Mostly smoke pollution come from Indonesia and make the neighbors like Malaysia and Singapore get the cross-border smoke pollution. From that ASEAN members make a meeting to overcome it and make a solution by make an agreement which is ASEAN Agreement Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP) on 10th June 2002 and forced into 25th 2003. (RAHAYU, 2020). Where this agreement had been regulated regarding a policy on zero burning policy. However, there is circumstances to achieve the goal of zero burning policy where the people in Asia especially in Indonesia still do not understand the concept of AATHP. We can see in in 2015, which was the worst year of haze to hit in Asia caused by forest fires in Indonesian Kalimantan while 12 years have passed since the first AATHP was implemented. (Nufael, 2018). Where this policy to achieve the goal of zero burning still has not been achieved and must make improvement.
REFERENCES
ASEAN Cooperation
on Environment . (n.d.). About ASEAN Cooperation on Transboundary Haze
Pollution Control. Retrieved from environment.asean.org:
https://environment.asean.org/about-asean-cooperation-on-transboundary-haze-pollution-control/
Chow, M. (2020,
September 20 ). Southeast Asia’s Transboundary Haze: Obstacles to a
Regional Solution. Retrieved from Global Risk Insights :
https://globalriskinsights.com/2020/09/southeast-asias-transboundary-haze-obstacles-to-a-regional-solution/
Nufael, A. (2018,
August 17). Malaysia Alami Jerebu Akibat Pembakaran Terbuka di Kalimantan.
Retrieved from benarnews.org: https://www.benarnews.org/malay/berita/my-jerebu-180817-08172018183152.html
Tobing, D. H.
(2017, September 8). Indonesia drags its feet on ASEAN haze treaty.
Retrieved from theconversation.com:
https://theconversation.com/indonesia-drags-its-feet-on-asean-haze-treaty-81779
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