Minderjeet Kaur, New Straits Times 11 Aug 09;
KUALA LUMPUR: The government said yesterday that open burning in Sabah and Sarawak will be banned till the end of the year, but an environmental watchdog wants it to be stopped permanently.
The Centre for Environment, Technology and Development (CETD) also urged the government to play a bigger role to stop the use of open burning to clear forests in Indonesia.
Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas said open burning was only allowed in Sabah and Sarawak, but the authorities have stopped issuing permits for such activities until the end of the year.
"We are now also looking at managing peat fires.
"If we do not control it, the haze will get worse," he said after launching the 8th International Symposium and Exhibition on Geoinformation here yesterday.
In the long term, he said he would discuss with the authorities to ban open burning during dry spells.
He said that they may not be able to stop open burning but they could at least allow it to take place at certain months of the year and thereby minimise its impact on the haze.
The government would also attend a haze control meeting this month to discuss long-term solutions to manage peat fires, he said.
This is to implement various measures between Asean countries that could help deal with the haze problem, he added.
Meanwhile, CETD chairman Gurmit Singh felt that open burning should be disallowed. Otherwise, the haze problem would continue to surface every year.
Haze blankets Trans-Kalimantan highway
The Jakarta Post 10 Aug 09;
Smoldering haze from bush and peat land fires in Central Kalimantan has covered the Trans-Kalimantan highway, Antara news agency reported.
"Over the past week, haze has disrupted traffic on the Trans-Kalimantan highway connecting Palangkaraya and Banjarmasin ," Ahmat Baderi, a driver, said Monday.
The haze has reduced visibility and caused respiratory problems in the area, he added.
The Palangkaraya Health Agency reported that a total of 1,882 people had suffered from respiratory problems due to the haze in the first week of August. Local residents have been forced to wear masks because of the smoke.
Fires have become more frequent and widespread especially in Sumatra and Kalimantan due to human-induced changes in the forest ecosystem.
The fires have also sparked complaints about the export of the haze from neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.
