Malaysia urges Indonesia to take action over air quality, ‘haze cannot be the norm’

Air quality has hit unhealthy levels in several parts of Malaysia in recent days, with Kuala Lumpur blaming fires in Indonesia – though Jakarta has denied detecting any smoke drifting over its borders into Malaysia.

Almost every dry season, smoke from fires to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia blankets much of the region, bringing risks to public health and worrying tourist operators and airlines. Many of the companies that own these plantations are foreign or foreign-listed.

Fires that sent haze billowing across the region in 2015 and 2019 burned millions of hectares of land and produced record-breaking emissions, according to scientists.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Malaysia’s minister of natural resources, environment and climate change, said he has sent a letter to his Indonesian counterpart this week on the haze.

“We submitted our letter to inform the Indonesian government and urging them to hopefully take action on the matter,” he said in an interview. “We cannot keep going back to having haze as something normal.”

He reiterated that most of the hotspots indicating fires were in Indonesia.