By DayakDaily Team
PUTRAJAYA, Sept 8: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has stressed that Malaysia will respect any legal action taken by Indonesian authorities against Malaysian companies operating in Indonesia if they are found to have committed wrongdoings contributing to the haze problem.
Speaking to the media after attending a Meeting with the staff of the Ministry of Plantations and Commodities here today, he stressed that the issue of open burning in Indonesia needs to be thoroughly investigated, including identifying the real cause of the fire before any action or accusations are made against any party.
“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 (them),” he said.
He stressed that Malaysia will not intervene or protect any company if investigations prove they are responsible for open burning or other violations of the law in neighbouring countries.
At the same time, he said Asean needs to review existing mechanisms for dealing with transboundary haze to avoid adverse impacts on people’s health, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
He said Asean ministers need to pay serious attention to the matter, as haze can directly affect people’s health and lives, especially children and babies.
“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 said.
Air quality in Serian was reported to have returned to hazardous levels when the monitoring station at the district police headquarters (IPD) in the area recorded an Air Pollutant Index (API) reading of 302 this morning.
Last Friday (Sept 4), His Majesty Sultan Ibrahim, King of Malaysia, declared a haze emergency in the entire Serian division after air pollution became hazardous to public health, before the declaration was lifted yesterday (Sept 7).
The Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) warned that the region’s transboundary haze crisis has become a human rights emergency that Asean and its member states must address urgently.
It urges Asean and its member states to treat the worsening transboundary haze problem as a human rights emergency, and to use the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the Asean Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in Da Nang, Vietnam, this October to close the enforcement gap that has left the region breathing toxic air for nearly three decades.
Among others, APHR also urged Asean and member states to develop a regional legal framework to hold corporate entities accountable for forest fires caused by peatland drainage, commodity-driven deforestation, and agricultural residue burning.
It also urged mandating all plantation companies with concession areas in flammable landscapes, including peatland or forestland, to publicly disclose and publish concession maps to be shared across all Asean member states to improve supply-chain transparency.
In addition, APHR urged Asean member countries to regulate traceability requirements at every step of the agribusiness and food industry supply chain to identify commodity origins and mitigate risks of deforestation, crop residue burning, and transboundary haze at the source.
Lastly, it said the bloc should agree on a standardised air quality indicator for all Asean member states to monitor and track air pollution using a common methodology and act accordingly. — Bernama
