ABSTRACT
The impact of the haze led to the emergence of the norm of forest protection against forest fires in Southeast Asia since the mid-1990s, when ASEAN leaders gradually saw the haze as a threat to the region’s population and economy. The norm emerged out of the interest factor and was enhanced by a diffusion of environmental norms from the international level. Unlike the issue of forest conservation and eco-labelling discussed in Chapter 2, there was almost a universal agreement on the validity of the claim that widespread burning of land and forests must be prevented because of the obvious and tremendous impact of the haze. However, as land and forest fires were in part caused by a natural phenomenon, El Niño (or ENSO), it was unclear who should be responsible for the burning and haze disaster. In October 1994, the Indonesian Minister of Forestry stated that 85.2 per cent of the fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan were started by local and nomadic farmers practising slash and burn agriculture. NGOs, however, blamed forest concessionaires and plantation companies, while the concessionaires and companies blamed the weather (Dennis, 1999: 11). At the regional level, Indonesia, as a sovereign country, is solely responsible for the regional transboundary air pollution caused by private actors within its jurisdiction.
