Environmentalist suggests fund that pays Indonesian farmers to stop burning forests

'Make firms pay for clear skies'
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 29 Jan 10;

THE seasonal haze in Singapore will be history if environmental pioneer Dorjee Sun has his way.

He wants to set up a mechanism through which Singapore companies planning to buy carbon credits - to make up for their carbon emissions - can make donations towards a community fund which will pay Indonesian farmers to stop setting tracts of forests on fire.

The farmers' slash-and-burn way of clearing forests for planting has been the source of a choking haze that blankets the skies in Singapore and Malaysia around the dry season in September, triggering breathing problems in the young, elderly and infirm, and affecting tourism.

Mr Sun, 32, thinks that by contributing towards the transboundary haze fund, Singapore companies will see a direct link between their donations and an easing of the haze problem.

He says: 'I want to reach out to the community and ask people for contributions - people who have children who feel they are breathing in the smog through no fault of their own.'

After all, why should companies in Singapore buy carbon credits from wind farms in China when they can do something to improve the air here, he asks.

He has moved his company, Carbon Conservation, to Singapore from Sydney, and has started meeting leaders of environmental groups and the Government.

One of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment last year, he is no stranger to innovative pro-environment ideas. For instance, he brokered the world's first project that prevented deforestation in Indonesia's Aceh province.

He did this by getting investment bank Merrill Lynch to pay for the protection of 770,000ha of jungle on the premise that it could one day make a profit out of selling 'credits' in the form of the carbon locked in the trees.

He is convinced this will potentially yield billions for investors like Merrill Lynch.

Mr Sun, an Australian of Chinese-Tibetan descent, is also behind the Meatless Monday movement, which pushes the idea of skipping meat one day a week to reduce the pollution created by meat farming.

He hopes to encourage big companies, government agencies and the army, for example, to join the movement.

He says: 'Vegetarianism is traditionally terribly unsexy. MTV could do it much better, so I'll be talking to them about it and getting restaurants involved in producing meatless menus one day a week.'

The company also wants to set up Carbon Conversations - a project to get people talking about issues and solutions online, at events and possibly via a TV programme.

The business, which employs 10 people, is currently based in Orchard Boulevard, but will be moving to the planned 55ha CleanTech Park in Jalan Bahar, the first phase of which will be completed by next year.