Jakarta, Ekuatorial – After finally ratified cross-border haze agreement, expert said government should be working on implementation rather than caught up in more bureaucracy to tackle forest fires in Indonesia.
Indonesia had officially ratified the ASEAN agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution after the House of Representatives (DPR) passed the bill on Tuesday (16/9). It took 12 years to convince the parliament to pass the bill after being signed in 2002, making Indonesia the last country to ratify the agreement.
“It should stop [at being ratified] but it needs to be transformed into internal regulations. [I would recommend for government] not to be caught up in normative regulations but encourage more on local regulations or just implement the agreement,” said Deni Bram, environmental law expert at Tarumanagara University, West Jakarta, to ekuatorial.com ahead of the ratification, on Monday (15/9).
Bram recommended the government to start with conduct more researches, open dialogues with other nations, and establish cooperation to put out fires. “There is no need to hesitate [to work with other countries] or suspicious or worry about sovereignty issue because the agreement does no mention about blaming other countries. It is mostly about cooperation to prevent forest fires,” he said.
In addition, he also suggested the government to negotiate with Singapore over their recent haze bill which would allow the country to pursuit legal lawsuit if haze was proven scientifically from forest fires in Indonesia.
“It is a progressive law from economical point of view because it applies as much as 100,000 Singapore dollar (Rp 950 million) fine per day to prosecute corporations,” he said. “However, from my point of view, Indonesia should be offended by the law because it regulates other country’s jurisdiction.”
In short, he said, Indonesia should be offended for using other country’s law to indict aggressors located in their areas instead of using their own regulations.
He cited the case of ADEI plantation which was found guilty for illegal land burning causing for thick haze back in 2013 but considered to have light punishment.
“The haze bill existed as a form of frustration from the Singaporean government as Indonesia has yet to ratify the haze agreement,” he said. “But, now, after we already signed it, there should be negotiations among two countries on the issue.”
He added that the agreement itself was a potential entry point for Indonesia to tackle forest fires.
In current development, National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) recorded 630 hotspots in Central Kalimantan, 268 hotspots in West Kalimantan, and 74 hotspots in South Kalimantan, by Monday (15/9). Meanwhile, in the same day, 281 hotspots recorded in South Sumatra, 94 hotspots in Riau, 53 hotspots in Bangka Belitung islands, 48 hotspots in Jambi, and eight hotspots in Lampung.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for BNPB, said that smokes from Riau and South Sumatra have reached Singapore and Malaysia increasing the air pollution index to moderate level.
Furthermore, Nugroho said that BNPB had dispatched seven water bombing helicopters to help local government putting out fires. “In Riau, 300 army soldiers and police, a Bolco helicopter and a Sirkorsky helicopter for water bombing dispatched to put out fires,” he said. “In South Sumatra, three helicopters, — Bolco, MI-8, and Kamov –, were operated to tackle the fires.”
He said that dry season was predicted to reach its peak on October and fires would widespread if there were no prevention efforts. Fidelis E. Satriastanti