Jessica Cheam Straits Times 28 Oct 10;
WET and cool weather may have granted Singapore a reprieve from the haze for now, but the issue remained a hot topic at a dialogue session yesterday.
Who is responsible and what needs to be done to fix the recurring problem were debated at the discussion organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA).
The focus should be on seeking the right solutions and incentives to tackle the problem, said SIIA chairman Simon Tay.
Singapore's collaboration with Jambi province, a fire-prone area in Indonesia's Sumatra, has helped to reduce hot spot activity from 2006, he pointed out.
'This is a model that can be scaled up and applied to other provinces prone to hot spots.'
The recent bout of haze was caused mainly by fires in Riau, another province in Sumatra.
The SIIA dialogue was attended by about 20 leading local environmentalists, private sector leaders and academics.
The topic of responsibility was a controversial one, said Mr Tay after the meeting.
Non-governmental organisations say pressure should be put on those who own land where hot spots occur.
But private companies say it is sometimes difficult to police the land due to its vast size.
Instead of pointing fingers, efforts could be focused on initiatives such as the Redd (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) scheme, which gives funding for forest protection.
Indonesia, for instance, has agreed to place a two-year moratorium on new concessions to clear natural forests and peatlands under a deal signed with Norway earlier this year.
Carbon Conservation chief executive Dorjee Sun, who was at the dialogue, said neighbouring countries or developed nations could set up a fund that pays local communities to protect their land instead of slashing and burning them for their livelihood.
'There are challenges in implementing this but it's a new idea that could really work,' he said.
Separately, Indonesian official Heru Prasetyo of the President's Delivery Unit told The Straits Times on the sidelines of an industry event that Indonesia was looking into Redd to tackle the haze.
'Redd would attach a higher value to the land and provide a better living for the people. So the pressure to burn the trees is less,' he said.
Haze problem: Change is happening, say experts
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 28 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE - People around the region - who experienced unhealthy levels of haze last week - may feel that reforms are not being made fast enough to deal with the problem, but change is happening in the right direction, according to experts at a discussion yesterday.
And they believe multi-level cooperation should continue.
"One of the improvements over the last three to five years is there are more groups working ground-to-ground ... trying to address the forest fires, the land fires - especially peat land - so really, we have to see whether this patchwork of different experiments can be knitted together to improve the situation," said Associate Professor Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
For instance, the World Wide Fund for Nature is working with Indonesian non-government organisations to assess forest conservation, he said.
Speaking to the media later, Assoc Prof Tay cautioned against fatalism after Singapore saw its worst haze since 2006. "The directional signs are getting better. Governments are making efforts. Companies are making efforts. Consumers elsewhere are making efforts."
On another issue, the discussion noted that Singaporean consumers should push for more transparency from companies in labelling of products - like their European counterparts have done, he said. Although the local market is small, consumers here could ask companies to follow the practice in Europe to label products which are sustainably produced.
The 20 or so participants - who included a corporate representative from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil called for companies to be "more public about their good record, therefore those who keep quiet, we can assume they're not so good".
But it is crucial for consumers to make themselves heard. "Why should these companies give an answer when no one's asking a question?" asked Assoc Prof Tay.
