Welcome remarks by H. E. Rodolfo C. Severino, Secretary-General
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,
at the Final Regional Workshop
of the Regional Technical Assistance Project
on Strengthening ASEAN's Capacity to Prevent and Mitigate
Transboundary Atmospheric Pollution

ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta, 21 June 1999

I take great pleasure in welcoming you all to the ASEAN Secretariat. We are gathered here for the final workshop of the very productive collaboration between ASEAN and the Asian Development Bank in what is called the Regional Technical Assistance Project. This project, which is marking one year of its operation, was set up to strengthen ASEAN's capacity to prevent and mitigate transboundary atmospheric pollution.

I should like to thank you for joining us today. I thank especially Pak Aca Sugandhy, Assistant Minister of the State Ministry for the Environment of Indonesia, for agreeing to open the workshop on behalf of His Excellency Dr. Panangian Siregar, the State Minister for the Environment. My special thanks go also to Mr. S. Tahir Qadri of the Asian Development Bank, who has directed the assistance extended by ADB to the project. And I thank the members of the Haze Technical Task Force of the ASEAN Senior Officials on the Environment for their full support of this effort under the strong leadership of Pak Aca, who is also chairman of the Task Force.

We all know about the massive atmospheric pollution that has, periodically and with increasing gravity, arisen from land and forest fires in Southeast Asia, blanketing large parts of the region and almost literally suffocating many of its people. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the land and forest fires in 1997 cost US$494 million in timber losses, US$470 million in losses to agriculture, US$1.8 billion in lost direct and indirect forest benefits, US$30 million in the loss of capturable blodiversity, US$25 million for fire-fighting, and US$272 million in carbon releases. It also caused US$941 million in short-term damage to health. It set back tourism by US$256 million. It inflicted US$24.7 million in losses on airports and airlines. It damaged industrial production by US$157 million and fisheries by US$16 million.

WWF calculates that Indonesia could have used its lost resources to provide basic sanitation, water and sewage services for forty million people, or one-third of its rural poor. WWF estimates that the losses suffered by Singapore tourism alone could have fully funded the Community Chest in that country, which comprises fifty charities and benefits 180,000 people, for three years. Malaysia could have financed all of the federal government's social programs for the last three years out of the resources that it lost to the fires and haze.

As the haze problem wrought dramatic damage to Southeast Asia, many people looked to the ASEAN response to this crisis - and to the financial upheaval that hit the region at the same time -- as a test of the association's solidarity and capacity for cooperation. Here was a disaster that arose largely in one ASEAN country but did damage to others as well as to itself. In this way, it was a test of the ASEAN countries' ability and willingness to deal cooperatively with problems in one country that severely affected its neighbors.

ASEAN's response was the Regional Haze Action Plan that the ASEAN Ministers of Environment endorsed in 1997. Under this plan. all ASEAN countries would work together to deal with this common problem, with the help and support of others.

An essential part of the Regional Haze Action Plan is the National Haze Action Plan that each ASEAN country agreed to develop as an obligation to the region. Each country's National Haze Action Plan requires it to describe, with utmost transparency, what it plans to do to combat the fires and haze. Here is a model of how ASEAN countries work together, each within its national sovereignty, to tackle a common problem as a joint endeavor for the good of all. It is a model that offers itself for emulation in how ASEAN can approach a problem arising from within one country but affecting others, a model of reconciling the tension that is increasingly encountered between the requirements of national sovereignty and the need for regional action.

On the basis of the regional and national haze action plans, two sub-regional fire-fighting arrangements, one for Sumatra and the other for Borneo, have been put together. These arrangements would allow one country to use another's fire-fighting personnel and equipment if a fire gets too big for one country to handle. They would provide for prior customs and immigration clearances and an integrated chain of command for fire-fighters operating in areas at risk.

The joint regional technical assistance project of ASEAN and ADB, which began operations in April 1998, has worked out the operational and implementation plans and procedures for the Regional Haze Action Plan and assisted member-countries in developing such plans and procedures for their own National Haze Action Plans. It has also drawn up detailed implementation plans for the sub-regional fire-fighting arrangements.

In the process, a massive amount of information on transboundary haze pollution was generated, gathered and processed by a multidisciplinary team of international experts together with the special Project Management Unit at the ASEAN Secretariat. This information is now readily accessible in the draft operationalized version of the Regional Haze Action Plan which this workshop expects to review and refine.

The periodic haze phenomenon is again enterin a critical period. The ASEAN Specialised, Meteorological Centre in Singapore has confirmed that around mid-April this year the current unusual wet conditions entered a terminal phase. If the El Nino-related three-year cycle holds, the onset of what is called the series of El Nino Southern Oscillation events could take place as early as September 2000. Obviously, the work on preventing and mitigating the fires cannot end.

Meanwhile, the ADB-funded RETA project is scheduled to close in September 1999, beyond its original one-year life. In order to continue the RETA's core functions, ASEAN has established in the Secretariat a coordination and support unit for the Regional Haze Action Plan. An officer and support staff are dedicated to this responsibility.

Clearly, neither that small contingent nor the other resources available to the Secretariat are anywhere near a level adequate to deal with such a massive problem as the transboundary haze pollution. A major part of the new unit's work is to help mobilize and coordinate external resources. Much is expected of the international community, as the impact of the haze on the ozone layer and on other parts of the global environment is, above all, a global problem.

Much, too, is expected of ASEAN itself, as the origins of the problem are in the ASEAN region, and the region has the primary responsibility for grappling with it.

In this light, the importance of this workshop is obvious - its importance to the global environment, to the health and livelihood of the people of Southeast Asia, and to the reputation of ASEAN.

It is in this spirit that I wish this workshop success.