ASEAN promotes haze monitoring by forest fire

Preventing, minimizing and monitoring haze pollution is the subject of the Conference to strengthen cooperation in implementing the ASEAN Agreement on transboundary haze pollution, taking place in Hanoi (May 11-13), with the participation of more than 120 scientists and managers of nearly 20 countries around the world.

Haze caused by forest fires in Malaysia. Photo: AP

The conference was organized by the Department of Environmental Protection (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

At the conference, delegates agreed that forest fires in most countries in the region are mainly due to shifting cultivation, burning forests for cultivation and some other causes such as the situation of collecting Non-wood products (burning torches to find honey). Forest fire sometimes happens because tourists throw away garbage and combustible substances in tourist areas .

Currently, ASEAN countries have implemented many active measures to prevent forest fires, such as reducing cultivation by nomadic farming, providing land for people to stabilize their lives, and allocating forests to people involved in forest protection. Some countries with high risk of forest fires have built a system of forest protection and scale protection, such as Thailand with up to 1,362 observation stations, 52 centers to coordinate activities on forest fire prevention, 164 stations according to National forest fire monitoring, 64 specialized firefighting teams.

Vietnam has also established the National Steering Committee for Forest Fire Prevention and Control from the central to local level with more than 20,000 community forest protection groups, 4,000 forest rangers supporting localities and 11,000 monitoring stations.

But the latest statistics from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Thailand, show that the number of forest fires in the region's countries is still increasing, and the smoke has spread across the border of many countries. Specifically, on March 27, 2006, satellite images recorded 1,922 forest fires in the Mekong region; On March 21, there were 1,182 forest fires in Myanmar.

Mr. Faizal Parish, Global Environment Organization, said that most countries have only prepared budget sources to deal urgently with large forest fires without having regular fund for implementation. measures to manage, protect and prevent fire risks for forests as well as peat sources under vegetation. The reason is that countries lack an appropriate mechanism to attract contributions from the Government, international organizations, people, businesses and individuals polluting .

At the conference, delegates focused on disseminating the contents of the ASEAN Agreement on transboundary haze pollution. This is an opportunity for ASEAN countries to share their experiences and needs to implement the Agreement effectively; strengthening and strengthening cooperation with international and regional organizations as well as seeking sponsors to implement the Agreement; seek cooperation in response to the challenge of forest fire and cross-border haze pollution.

H.Yen