Indonesia’s Haze Governance Deficit

New Straits Times

12 October 2015

Jonatan A. Lassa

THE Indonesian government has shown renewed resolve to tackle the haze problem, as indicated by its ratification of the Asean Transboundary Haze Agreement last year.

President Joko Widodo has also clearly indicated that he needs at least three years to effectively solve the haze issue. The president has demonstrated his commitment in typical style – by going down to the ground to see for himself the extent of the problem.

This, however, literally means that people most affected by the haze in Sumatra and Kalimantan in Indonesia as well as Singapore and Malaysia will have to live with it for another three years.

Yet, some experts have argued that three years is not enough.

Despite his good intention to eliminate the drivers of forest fires in years to come, there is a much deeper problem which lies in the way fire prevention is managed. The complexity is often not adequately understood as the devil is always in the detail.

… The writer is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Non–Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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