Regional ministers look at new ways to prevent haze

SINGAPORE and countries in the region will explore new methods to prevent the perennial haze, following a meeting of their environment ministers in Bali on Wednesday.

These include the sharing of maps of the resource concessions given by the countries to companies and landowners to identify those operating in the areas with fires, as well as the formation of a technical task force to facilitate this initiative, said a joint statement by the governments after the meeting.

Some of these ideas were outlined earlier last month in the Singapore Parliament by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, who attended Wednesday's 14th Meeting of the Sub-Regional Ministerial Steering Committee on Transboundary Haze Pollution.

The committee, chaired by Singapore since 2010, includes the ministers of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.