With the dry season approaching in South-east Asia, Singapore has announced it will continue to send a haze assistance package to Indonesia to combat the country’s forest fires.
The package this year is similar to last year’s, comprising up to two C-130 aircraft to ferry a fire-fighting assistance team from Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), who will be providing fire-fighting assessment and planning assistance to their Indonesian counterparts; another C-130 aircraft for cloud seeding operations; and high-resolution satellite pictures of fires and the coordinates of the fire sites.
Transboundary haze from land and forest fires has been a perennial problem in the region for decades.
AFP, Reuters, The Straits Times
Illegal and unsustainable land clearing methods, in particular “slash and burn” agricultural practices by irresponsible companies, have been identified as the root cause of fires that result in transboundary haze pollution, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) said in a statement today (June 7).
Last year’s haze episode was one of the worst and the most prolonged in history, and had a major impact on the health and livelihoods of the people in Indonesia and many countries in the region including Singapore.
“The Singapore Government remains committed to working with the Indonesian Government and other like-minded partners to find more permanent solutions to this regional problem,” the MEWR said.
huizhen@sph.com.sg
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