Indonesia says no transboundary haze to Malaysia as bickering over air quality continues

Name: Malaysia blames Indonesia for haze sparked by cross-border fires, prompting rebuff from Jakarta
Uploaded: 2023-10-06T05:17:06.000Z
Duration: 1 min 50 s
Description: Malaysia blames Indonesia for haze sparked by cross-border fires, prompting rebuff from Jakarta

Indonesia’s environment minister said forest fires in the country had declined and measures were being taken to tackle the issue but ‘not based upon Malaysia’s request’

Asean officials have pledged to minimise and eventually eliminate crop burning in the region amid concerns about cross-border haze

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Students ride a wooden boat through the smog-covered Ogan river in Palembang, Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, on September 30. Photo: Antara Foto/Reuters

Reuters

Published: 1:17pm, 6 Oct 2023Updated: 2:11pm, 6 Oct 2023

Forest fires in some parts of Indonesia have declined and no haze had been detected moving to Malaysia, Indonesia’s environment minister said on Friday, a day after its neighbour urged Jakarta to take action as air quality worsened.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Malaysia’s minister of natural resources, environment and climate change, said he had asked his Indonesian counterpart to address the haze, as air quality worsens, saying haze should not be a new normal.

“I do not know what basis that Malaysia used in giving those statements. We are working not based upon Malaysia’s request,” Indonesia’s environment minister Siti Nurbaya said.

Fires that sent haze billowing across the region in 2015 and 2019 burned millions of hectares of land and produced record-breaking emissions, according to scientists.

Almost every dry season, smoke from fires to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia blankets much of the region, bringing health risks and concerning tourist operators and airlines.

The Indonesian minister also said the number of forest fires in some parts of Sumatra and Borneo had declined and the government continues to put out the blazes.

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Malaysia blames Indonesia for haze sparked by cross-border fires, prompting rebuff from Jakarta

Her remarks came as Southeast Asian agriculture and forestry ministers agreed to take collective action to minimise and eventually eliminate crop burning in the region.