Malaysia: Indonesia misjudged strength of El Nino -- Wan Junaidi

YU JI The Star 1 Nov 15;

KUCHING: South-East Asia’s haze crisis this year was partly due to the Indonesian authorities under-estimating the strength of the El Nino drought.

Not since 1997 and 1998 had the dry season been this severe, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said yesterday when asked about Indonesia’s pledge to end the annual haze occurrence by 2018.

“The Indonesian authorities have given me an assurance that next year and in 2017, open burning on such a large scale would not occur anymore; certainly not like what we have gone through this year,” he said.

“Among the reasons, they said, were weaknesses in their forecasts related to El Nino. Their forecast for El Nino in 2015 and 2016 was that it would not be as serious as 1997 and 1998.

“But what is happening now is that El Nino is as severe as in 1997,” Wan Junaidi told reporters after opening the state-level Envi­ronment Week.

In the years since 1998, when El Nino did not occur, the haze never got as bad, he said.

Only “natural intervention” could end the open burning in Indo­nesia, he said, adding that 1.7 million hectares of land was affected.

Junaidi said Indonesia would adopt Malaysia’s peat soil management, which included micro dams to ensure the presence of surface water, deep wells of over 100m as a water source and simple measures such as building more watch towers.

Satellites detected 53 hotspots in Sumatra yesterday. In Borneo, only one hotspot was detected.

Junaidi said stiffer penalties for Malaysian polluters, from those who burnt rubbish in their backyards to pollutants from factories, was being studied.


ASEAN should aim to be haze free by 2018: Wan Junaidi
New Straits Times 31 Oct 15;

KUCHING: Malaysia hopes ASEAN should aim to be a haze free region by 2018, said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said here today.

He said he had attended the 11th Conference of Parties (COP) to the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution held in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday and Friday where the haze problem was the main issue.

“Although this is not an official declaration yet Malaysia expresses the hope that the ASEAN region should aim to be haze free by then,” he told the media after launching the state annual Environmental Week celebration here today.

Wan Junaidi said ASEAN countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Northern Thailand also suffered from the haze because of their forest fires.

“But the severity is less because they do not have huge areas of peat soil. “Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are badly affected when most of the 1.7 million hectares under peat in Indonesia catches fires,” he said.

On Indonesia ‘s commitment to fight future forest fires, Wan Junaidi said he had met with his Indonesian counterpart, Siti Nurbaya Bakar recently.

“Indonesia will send a delegation to study our peat soil management system in which we have drains and dams to help moisturise such soil. “They also want to learn about our tube well system while we have a very strong enforcement by the Department of Environment which they can learn from,” he added On the haze, Wan Junaidi said heavy rains, which occurred on October 17, had helped to douse forest fires in Riau and Jampi and reduced the haze problem considerably. -- Bernama