Geopolitical Struggles in Tackling the Southeast Asian Haze

The struggles faced by Indonesia in tackling the problem of the haze extend to the regional level as the inherent international geopolitical debates pertaining to the issue hinder the concretisation of efficient action plans. 

Once again referring to Varkley's (2013) work, she accredits the region's inability to effectively find a resolution to the problem to the patronage politics in the sector, which is connected to the ASEAN style of regional engagement that prioritises the maintenance of national sovereignty. As the mouthpiece of civil society in an international arena, states are compelled to act in their national interests, as opposed to the collective regional interests. This is being exemplified in the excerpts of the agreement below: 

To go back to an earlier post on the benefits arising from the haze, we identify the economic importance of the oil palm sector to the country along with the political importance of the clients populating this sector to elite patrons in the governments. This meant that the maintenance of the status quo, where the clients could continue to engage in their deforesting ways, was of crucial national interest. Herein, the ASEAN style of regional engagement has evidently enabled the political elites to shape ASEAN initiatives to preserve the interests of their clients, while the general public in Indonesia as well as in the region continue to suffer the haze.

Having read this, it is easy to put the blame on ASEAN as a regional organisation being not as forceful as it should have been in order to protect the health of Southeast Asia. However, there are considerations to be made to avoid such rash and brash opinions -the sovereignty of the state being foremost. The applicability of the principle to other policies and agreements have also acted as a mediator in the amount of pressure being doled out to Indonesia. That being said, now that Indonesia has finally ratified the agreement, the effectiveness of this move remains to be seen. 

Political Struggles In Tackling Haze Pollution

Indonesia is a large country with many layers of bureaucracy (and perhaps corruption) that is foreign to Singapore. This makes it difficult to coordinate policies and form agreements which benefits the civil society.  

According to Varkkey (2013), one key obstacle in the tackling of the transboundary haze problem would be the importance of patronage networks within the oil palm sector in Indonesia, especially in terms of knowledge and access to local markets, distribution systems, connections around local bureaucracy and business systems (Terjesen and Elam, 2009). Because of this, it has become the norm at least among the top tiers of the Indonesian plantation firms to possess a two-tier management structure that comprises of the board of directors and board of commissioners. Officially the former manages and represents the company and the latter supervises the directors (Rajenthran, 2002). However in reality, members of the board of commissioners and sometimes the board of directors are typically retired senior bureaucrats who could act as intermediaries with the state and perform "advisory and brokerage functions" on behalf of the company. This means that several political parties in power have direct links to those plantation interests and have the potential to encourage elites to favour arrangements that ensure domestic and regional political economic stability and market access to these natural resources, while providing a lack of incentives for effective regional environmental conservation.

Another pertinent struggle of reducing the occurrences and the severity of haze in the region would be resistances that are present at a ministerial level. There is a dearth of mutual cooperation among Indonesia's domestic institutions (Nguitragool, 2011), resulting in a hierarchy among government ministries in Indonesia. The Ministries of Forestry and Agriculture are the more powerful ministries, with greater mandate, manpower and financial resources (Tan, 2004). Even if the Environment Ministry has been the engine of Indonesia's environmental diplomacy and holds the mandate to negotiate environmental treaties, its officials barely wield decision-making authority over land and forest policy at the state level. They remain a junior ministry, unable to sway their higher-ups in favour of environmental policy.

Is this corruption? It seems like it when one compares this to the Singaporean way of governance where ministries possess equal power in swaying the House's final decisions. Ministries should be given equal power and bear foresight to implement policies that benefit civil society, not only within the home region but the region as well. No man is an island, and no country is one either.


References:
Nguitragool, P. (2011). Negotiating the Haze Treaty. Asian Survey, 51(2), 356-378. 
Rajenthran, A. (2002). Indonesia: An overview of the legal framework of foreign direct investment. Paper presented at the ISEAS Working Papers: Economics and Finance, Singapore.
Varkley, H. (2013). Patronage politics, plantation fires and transboundary haze. Environmental Hazards. 
Terjesen, S & Elam, A. (2009). Transnational entrepreneurs' venture internationalization strategies: A practice theory approach. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(5), 1093-1116.  
Tan, A.K. J. (2004). Environmental laws and institutions in Southeast Asia: A review of recent developments. Singapore Year Book of International Law, 8, 177-192. 

Indonesia's Efforts to Tackle the Haze Problem

As the established key contributor of both episodes of the SEA Haze (through scientific data and admittance), Indonesia has recently ratified the ASEAN Agreement against Transboundary Haze Pollution although its effectiveness remains to be seen. However to Indonesia's credit, this is not their only concerted effort in trying to reduce the haze.

At a state level, Indonesia has laws against illegal burning but these laws are a weak deterrent due to poor enforcement by a "junior ministry" within Indonesian politics. There is a misalignment of incentives due to the incongruence between civic welfare and economic returns. Nonetheless, there are indications of growing political will by Indonesian heavyweights. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had declared a war against the haze in 2006 and according to The Economist, he has been "uncommonly courageous" in protecting the environment. In 2009, he had pledged to cut carbon emissions by at least 26% by 2020. This promise being made on an international platform is significant because most of Indonesia's carbon dioxide emissions are a consequence of deforestation. In 2011, the President had also imposed a two-year moratorium on granting forest clearing concessions under Norway's $1 billion Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation-Plus programme. He had also extended this moratorium till 2013 in spite of vast pressures from naysayers to the policies. 

I don't want to be pessimistic but can we just say that while it is great that Indonesia is cooperative at the very least, this cooperation and the promises by the President seemed to have little effect against the overall haze situation, given its reoccurrence on a yearly basis. Either they are hitting the wrong spots or what is being done is too little to mitigate against the prevalence of the haze. The following blog posts on the political and geopolitical struggles on haze prevention will elucidate this to greater detail. 

International Efforts to Tackle the Haze

Eluded by the term "trans-boundary haze", the problem of haze pollution is not confined to just the country releasing the pollutants nor the countries affected. The major players in the world have gotten involved in discussions to resolve the haze with both incentives and aid being provided to Indonesia as well as the affected countries.

In 1997, the foreign minister of Myanmar who headed the Environmental Affairs at the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the time suggested that the haze mitigation efforts should be carried out at the regional level due to its transboundary nature, its extreme effect on society and its close relationship to natural resource management in the region. ASEAN member countries unanimously supported this as an opportunity to address the public's concerns. 

This manifested in the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002 where a pledge was being made to reduce haze pollution in Southeast Asia. The general obligations of the agreement states that the Parties shall:

"1. Co-operate in developing and implementing measures to prevent and monitor transboundary haze pollution as a result of land and/or forest fires which should be mitigated, and to control sources of fires, including by the identification of fires, development of monitoring, assessment and early warning systems, exchange of information and technology, and the provision of mutual assistance. 

2. When the transboundary haze pollution originates from within their territories, respond promptly to a request for relevant information or consultations sought by a State or States that are or may be affected by such transboundary haze pollution, with a view to minimising the consequences of the transboundary haze pollution. 

3. Take legislative, administrative and/or other measures to implement their obligations under this Agreement. "

Over the years, though ASEAN has not seen much success given the absence of Indonesia from the agreement, in October 2013 leaders have approved a joint haze monitoring system and Singapore has offered to start working directly with Indonesian farmers to encourage sustainable practices and minimise the problem by "tackling the haze issue at its root" (Straits Times, 2014). Perhaps it is coincidental, but actual policy implementations seemed to have only come after the 2013 haze outbreak where PSI values broke previous records and shocked the region into action. The impetus of haze prevention might have surfaced even greater and hence propelled nations (Indonesia included) into bring the agreement from the policy level to the ground for political reasons perhaps. 

References 

Strait Times. (2014) Singapore willing to work with Indonesia, Malaysia to tackle causes of haze. 

Haze Formation in Indonesia

All this talk about the effects and the geopolitical debates has nearly led me to forget one of the most fundamental questions in this discussion -how. What resulted in the 2013 haze as well as the 1997 episode and how did they reach their ground-breakingly hazardous levels?

In Indonesia, peat land fires are by far the largest contributor to smoke haze pollution. In 1997/98, peat land fires have contributed between 60-90% of the emissions resulting in smoke haze and they were also the The need for burning stems from the recent oil palm expansion, which refers to the profitability of growing and selling oil palm products. Increased demand has driven the expansion and deforestation of land at a scale no one has ever seen before. Where the culprits are not the large-scale investors, clearing the land by setting on fire the plantation becomes the most cost efficient and fastest method, despite its non-legal nature. A succinct explanation of the chemical processes behind forest fires is being made in this video from 0:25 to 0:50. Click here!

We say that forest fires are the largest contributing factor the haze because it releases large amounts of particulate matter comprising of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter. These are poisonous and do not blend into the air in a homogeneous manner thereby contributing to their stay within the atmosphere for long periods of time, leading to impairment of visibility and the afore-mentioned negative effects on the health and lifestyles of the living population. 

A crucial supporting factor in the formation of haze within Southeast Asia is the lack of proper and efficient governance. While there are legal obligations being put in place at a state level, these policies do not always take into consideration what happens on the ground and the fact that large scale concessions are often being handed out, the problem of the haze often persists despite structural legalities. 

Evidently, the haze in Southeast Asia is not just the result of one but many triggers. This has implications for the resolution of these hotspots (hah!) of problems, which will be fleshed out to a deeper extent in subsequent entries.