space Basel Action News, Vol 1, #1

For several years, non-governmental organizations have felt it was necessary to bring container loads of waste, case studies, films or photos to the Basel Convention to show delegates the results of the global spread of dirty industry. This year in what is likely the first case of an international environmental conference being cancelled due to an environmental crisis, it almost seemed like nature herself attempted to make an intervention at the Basel Conference.

Just days before the Fourth Conference of Parties, scheduled to be held in Kuching, Malaysia, October 6-10, officials were forced to cancel the meeting when the pollution reached alarming levels. In fact Kuching was considered "ground zero" in a cloud of smoke enfulging most of South East Asia and which stretched all the way to the Phillipines. Thousands of persons were hospitalized and even more evacuated. The schools, many businesses, and the airport were all closed in Kuching due to the respiration hazard and almost zero visibility.

At its root, the pollution is largely the result of government complicity in protecting unsustainable agriculture and manufac-turing at the expense of long term nation- al environmental health. This mentality has already turned the country of Taiwan into a toxic nation state. Yet all other countries in the region seem to be vying to see who will realize that fate next.

If there is any remaining question about the urgency of international environmental accords and to refuse to backslide from those that have been reached, one need only to be reminded of the environmental meeting that would have been...

By NICK EDWARDS

Asia has recorded phenomenal economic growth over the last two decades and with it has come heavy pollution, a problem exacerbated in Southeast Asia in recent weeks by smoke from Indonesian forest and bush fires.

Malaysia has declared a national disaster because of the haze and on Friday its eastern state of Sarawak announced a state of emergency.

In clean and green neighbouring Singapore air pollution hit its worst level ever on Thursday. The common argument that the need to provide jobs in a poor and populous region outweighs concerns for the environment is indefensible, the technological experts say.

"It's a cop-out," said Mark Harrison, business services manager at the Singa- pore based Regional Institute of Envir- onmental Technology (RIET). "What we're up against is inertia and the belief that the free market will always provide the most effective means of production. It's a cop-out and the biggest obstacle."

Justin Taylor, of the Singapore energy consultancy Super Solutions, blamed the "ying and yang" approach to development in Asia. "If there is a benefit, it is a given that there must be a cost, which is the rationalisation for waste and damage," he said.

Southeast Asia's fast-burgeoning con- sumer class grows wealthier by the day. Factories pour out pollutants and cities grind to a halt in choking traffic while the age-old tradition of burning off tropical bush and forest to clear land for agricul- ture sends smoke billowing into the air.

This year, with drought gripping much of Indonesia, the old slash and burn clearances have raged out of control. The smoke has spread across Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, trapping modern cities under a leaden grey dome, blotting out the sun and choking their inhabitants.

Though Southeast Asian countries are loathe to criticise each other over what they consider internal affairs, the pollution has grown so serious that it topped the agenda at a meeting of regional environment ministers in Jakarta earlier this week.

President Suharto apologised to the ministers of his neibghbouring countries for the choking haze but said Indonesia was doing its best to put the fires out.

"We don't lack laws and regulations, perhaps we have too many of them. It takes a huge crisis for us to really see that we have a basic problem of governance," Environment Minister Sarwono Kusumaatmadja told reporters. "The problem with us is that we don't enforce these laws."

(Excerpted from (c) Reuters Limited 1997)