Jakarta to scrap haze-linked projects with S’pore, says Indonesian minister

JAKARTA — Indonesia will scrap some ongoing and upcoming collaboration projects with Singapore on environment, forestry and haze-related issues as part of a unilateral review on bilateral cooperation that Jakarta is conducting, said the Indonesian Minister of the Environment and Forestry in an interview with a Jakarta-based environment news portal published over the weekend.

“I’m leading this review process myself. This is a substantial step that needs to be taken. We have a set of clear and measured criteria in this review process,” Siti Nurbaya, the minister, told foresthints.news in an interview.

“We are looking at these bilateral collaborations in terms of substance. If it comes down to breaking off any existing bilateral collaborations, this would be the logical consequence of a substance-based review process,” she said, adding that the review includes bilateral collaboration projects in the pipeline, including those concerning haze and forest fire-related issues.

“This all forms part of the substantial review process in the field of the environment and forestry. Planned bilateral collaborations between Singapore and my ministry, such as those involving haze and forest fire-related issues, are no exception,” she was quoted as saying by the portal in the interview conducted last Thursday (May 12).

On whether Singapore’s Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources was involved in the review process, Ms Nurbaya pointed out that it was a unilateral move by her ministry, and not a joint effort with Singapore.

“We are only going to inform Singapore, at a later stage, of the existing bilateral collaborations that are to be terminated as well as those planned collaborations which will not go ahead. Basically, we only feel obliged to notify them of our decisions,” she said, adding that she had drafted a letter to be sent to local government authorities asking that they stop any direct bilateral cooperation with Singapore, particularly on haze and forest fire-related issues.

She did not spell out which initiatives would be affected.

Ms Nurbaya’s comments came after an announcement by Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) last Wednesday that it had obtained a court warrant against the director of one of the Indonesian firms linked to illegal forest fires that caused a region-wide haze for several months last year.

The director had failed to heed the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act notice served to him by NEA when he was in Singapore. The notice required him to attend an interview with NEA in relation to ongoing investigations, but he failed to turn up.

In response, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in Jakarta last Thursday (May 12) that the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore has ‘strongly protested’ NEA’s actions.

But Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday that it found Mr Arrmanatha’s puzzling as Singapore has not received any representation from the Indonesian Embassy here.

This is not the first time Ms Nurbaya has spoken up against Singapore.

In an interview last month, also with foresthints.news, she told Singapore to focus on its own role in addressing the issue instead of “making so many comments”. She said then that the Indonesian government has taken “substantial steps” to prevent land and forest fires, and the ensuing haze that envelopes the region every year, based on decisions made by the Indonesian government, and not because of pressure from other countries, including Singapore.

“We have been consistent in sticking to our part of the bargain, especially by attempting to prevent the recurrence of land and forest fires and by consistently enforcing the law. So, my question is — what has the Singaporean Government done? I feel that they should focus on their own role,” she said.

She added that Singapore needed to do its own part in combating the haze.

“There is really no need to comment too much on the part Indonesia is currently playing. However, with all due respect to my Singaporean counterpart, what are they doing? And where has it got them?” she asked.

She was then responding to Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli’s statement at a sustainability forum that agro-forestry companies should take full responsibility for fire prevention and mitigation in their concessions, and that there must not be a repeat of last year’s forest fires which caused the haze.

Singapore has issued notices to six Indonesia-based companies that started fires or let their concessions burn, and contributed to last year’s haze that blanketed Singapore and parts of the region.

In the latest interview with foresthints.news last week, Ms Nurbaya said that Jakarta would continue to take legal action against errant companies found to have violated Indonesian laws.

“We uphold the law in an independent manner based on Indonesia’s own laws and regulations. We certainly don’t rely on data and information derived from other countries as the basis for our legal processes,” she said.

“We are not looking for a scapegoat for not enforcing the law. The objective of our law enforcement measures is to create conditions which enable the prevention of any recurrence of land and forest fires this year and any other year in the future.”