SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: Case Studies—Riau and Central Kalimantan

Last month, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) launched its Haze Outlook 2021. Co-authored by SIIA and Segi Enam Advisors, it is a risk assessment report on the possibility of a severe transboundary haze incident for the year in the ASEAN region.

Like its predecessors, the report has an appendix featuring two case studies of Riau and Central Kalimantan. These case studies illustrate a geographical overview on hotspot intensity in relation to other relevant information, including forest and peatland moratorium areas designated by the Indonesian government and districts with food estate projects in planning.

Riau

In contrast to September 2019, there were no high confidence-levelled hotspots detected in 2020 of the same month within the Riau district, likely reflective of notable efforts made by the provincial government in launching its own sustainability and forest fire prevention campaigns under the umbrella of the “Green Riau” strategy. The concern this time lies in with the central government’s food estate programmes—for Riau, its districts of Rokan Hilir, Pelalawan, and Indragiri Hilir (indicated in purple) have been earmarked. While the exact location of these programmes are still unknown, much of the land within the three districts noticeably consists of either peatland or areas protected areas recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and/or under moratoriums prohibiting the conversion of forest land into commercial plantations.

Central Kalimantan

Central Kalimantan recorded significantly fewer hotspots in September 2020 compared to September 2019, which was a source of great relief for region. Similar to Riau, the concern this time again lies in the central government’s food estate programmes—for Riau, its districts of Pulang Pisau and Kapuas (indicated in dark purple) have been earmarked, both of which overlap with the 1996 Mega Rice Project (indicated in light purple), an unsuccessful food security project that was later abandoned and left much of the area dry and vulnerable to fires. A significant portion of these districts notably constitute peatlands and protected areas, again painting a similar story in Riau.

Our previous posts on the SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: (1) Reviewing 2020; (2) Issues to Watch in 2021; and (3) Opportunities for Climate Action and Green Recovery.

Read the full report here: SIIA Haze Outlook 2021

Malaysia Downgraded to Worst Ranking in Human Trafficking Report

Last Thursday, the US State Department released its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2021. The report evaluates a nation’s compliance with the standards as detailed in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) 2000.

Each country is then categorised into one of the four tiers: (1) Tier 1, nations whose governments fulfil the minimum standards under the TVPA 2000; (2) Tier 2, nations whose governments do not fulfil those minimum standards but are making significant efforts to do so; (3) Tier 2 Watch List, the same as Tier 2 but with either a significantly high/increasing number of estimated trafficking victims or a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of human trafficking; (4) Tier 3, nations whose governments do not fulfil the minimum standards under the TVPA 2000 and are not putting significant effort to do so.

In the report, Malaysia has been downgraded from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3. One of the main reasons for the downgrade was that while the government has made some effort in 2020 to address trafficking issues raised that year, these efforts were ultimately hindered by, inter alia, the lack of cooperation between official agencies, inadequate avenues for victims to turn to for help, corruption, and the government’s continuous error of conflating human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

The Malaysian government has since responded to the report, promising to review recruitment fee agreements and levies as well as its memorandums of understanding with other countries to identify elements that would pose a risk of labour exploitation.

The downgrade has drawn justifiable concern from various parties, many of whom are calling the government to be more proactive. The Bar Council released a press statement detailing a list of proposals the government may undertake to combat human trafficking. The Human Rights Commissions (SUHAKAM) is urging the government to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) to implement the recommendations made in the TIP report. Even foreign agencies are taking special notice—the British High Commission recently called for project proposals to address the modern slavery problem in Malaysia. Response from the corporate sector suggests the sector is treating the report more cautiously, wary that its findings could have elements of a smear campaign.

Regardless, this downgrade may not come as a surprise to those who have been following the news on labour issues in Malaysia—in the past year alone, three Malaysian-based companies were issued Withhold Release Orders (WRO) by the US Customs and Border Protection (USCBP). These WROs, which prohibit the companies to import their goods into the States, were in response to allegations of forced labour, some of which were concerns raised by NGOs.

BFM: Moving Forward with Challenges in Migration Issues

The US State Department released its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report earlier this month, and in it was a damning development: Malaysia was downgraded from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3. The downgrade essentially suggests that the country has failed to fulfil the minimum labour standards and is not putting significant effort to do so.

An important issue for sure, BFM invited Segi Enam principal Khor Yu Leng to discuss the matter: Moving Forward with Challenges in Migration Issues.

COVID-19 has complicated migration, with a pause being put on migrant labour flows, and concerns about how this could worsen the problem of human trafficking. First, we find out how the pandemic has affected migration trends in the region. Then, we discuss Malaysia's downgrade to Tier 3 in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report, and how this affects businesses. And finally, we hear what it’s like for migrants here in our country.

Image Source: John Salvino, Unsplash; produced by: Loo Juosie, Kelvin Yee, Azlyna Mohd Noor; presented by: Lee Chwi Lynn, Sharmilla Ganesan

SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: Opportunities for Climate Action and Green Recovery

The SIIA Haze Outlook 2021, published last month and co-authored by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and Segi Enam Advisors, has something a little different than last year’s report—a segment exploring opportunities for climate action and green recovery, with particular focus on nature-based solutions (NBS) and carbon markets.

Theoretically, nature-based projects could lead to carbon emissions reduction and carbon offsets, while providing opportunities for investments. While the sector is still in its early stages of development, interest in carbon credits generated form Indonesia-based NBS projects is growing. The Katingan Mentaya Project managed by PT Rimba Makmur Utama illustrates this interest—a forest restoration and protection initiative located in Central Kalimantan, it generates an average of 7.5 million triple gold certified carbon credits a year, and carbon credits generated from the project have already been purchased by major global multinational firms.

Accordingly, many plantation companies that spoke to SIIA have expressed some interest in generating carbon credits from their own conservation projects, both current and future. Ultimately however, it is still too early to assess how willing project developers are to sell credits internationally compared to domestically.

Our previous posts on the SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: (1) Reviewing 2020; and (2) Issues to Watch in 2021

Read the full report here: SIIA Haze Outlook 2021

SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: Issues to Watch in 2021

Continuing from previous posts on SIIA’s Haze Outlook 2021, of which Segi Enam was the co-authors, there are several relevant issues that bear watching in 2021.

On the meteorological front, Indonesia is expected to enter into its usual June–September dry season following a wet spell that was in large part caused by La Niña. Meteorological departments generally expected this dry season to either remain normal or drier than it was in 2020 but much less so than the droughts in 2015 and 2019. Both the Indian Ocean Dipole and El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomena are forecasted to stay neutral throughout the third quarter of 2021. Overall, however, meteorologists warn that there are still some uncertainty in these forecasts, since it is difficult to make predictions during the transition seasons from April to May.

Given the favourable weather conditions, policy and human factors become decidedly important in the evaluating the risk of a severe transboundary haze. On one hand, the relevant policies in effect are sending a strong message of commitment to sustainability on the part of the Indonesian government, particularly in the areas of peatland and mangrove conservation, net zero emission goals, and haze prevention in the midst of the pandemic. On the other, there are concerns that the more recent policies, namely the Omnibus Law and food estate programme, would leave adverse environmental consequences.

Source: Segi Enam Advisors based on data from The World Bank (2021) for palm oil and rubber prices, GFW (2021) for tree cover loss and primary forest loss, KLHK (n.d.) and KLHK (2017) for official estimated burned area in 2015, 2019, and 2020.

That being said, there are other factors that bear watching. The Covid-19 pandemic is the most obvious; while it has presently not resulted in a severe haze incident despite the disruptions it has caused to fire management efforts, its impact in 2021 and beyond remains unclear. What the pandemic has caused is a near multi-year high in prices within the agricultural commodity market, which in turn raises the question of whether it would drive Indonesia growers to carry out land clearing and replanting activities.

Read the full report here: SIIA Haze Report 2021

PEFC Supporting Sustainable Rubber

The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) has launched the Our Supporting Sustainable Rubber campaign in effort to ramp up sustainability standards within the rubber industry. PEFC held an online webinar to officially kickstart the campaign yesterday, in which several interesting pieces of information were revealed:

1. Problems faced by rubber smallholders are essentially: (1) price volatility; (2) low productivity; (3) unsustainable practices; and (4) compliance issues. To that end, PEFC is a key partner in an initiative with the UN-REDD Programme to develop a sustainable forest trade certification framework, with its pilot project already ongoing in the Lower Mekong region in Thailand.

2. The Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) is looking to create a risk-based platform that would allow certified companies to assess its sustainability standards against the standards recommended by the GPSNR. The platform was led by tire companies as an alternate (non-certification?) approach. The International Rubber Study Group (IRSG) also has a self-declaration approach to rubber sustainability.

3. There was a point made about the increasing global demand for traceability, and that it may be more beneficial to view the requirement of traceability as a tool to improve sustainability practices rather than to reveal good and/or bad practices in itself. Panellists also noted that there is also a lot of work that still needs to be done to identify pertinent sustainability issues, especially when it comes to social issues such as equality of pay.

Edit (08.07.2021, 12.50 p.m.): Edited to include last two sentences in point 2.

#BenderaPutih Trending on Twitterjaya

As the country continues its movement order control—this time with seemingly no end in sight—Malaysians have again banded together to help each other without waiting for official aid, this time in the form of the #BenderaPutih (white flag) movement. A “sister” hashtag to last year’s #KitaJagaKita, the movement encourages those facing financial difficulties to reach out for assistance by flying a white flag at their homes without fear of humiliation (embarrassingly, like its “sister” hashtag, several politicians attempted to piggyback on #BenderaPutih movement, only to receive the outrage of netizens).

The online campaign has trended significantly on social media—data shows a relatively high usage of the hashtag in many major areas outside of Kuala Lumpur/Selangor, including Kota Bharu, Kuala Terengganu (east coast, Peninsula), Alor Setar, Johor Bahru (west coast, Peninsula), Kuching, and Kota Kinabalu (East Malaysia).

Heatmap showing concentration of #BenderaPutih usage across Malaysia. Note: map is indicative and not to, i.e. bigger than, scale

In comparison, social media attention on #BenderaPutih is significantly higher than some other related hashtags, such as #ProtesDarurat and #BantahDarurat, which cumulatively only received around 16,000 mentions since they were first used in October last year compared to #BenderaPutih’s 73,000 mentions (and counting) this week.

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Sources for aid/if you’d like to help (please note that this list is not exhaustive):

1. #BenderaPutih: Where to get help: MalaysiaKini has compiled a list of programmes that can provide help, which include locations of Shell petrol station food banks and 99 Speedmart’s grocery package programme.

2. Facing #BenderaPutih, Malaysians help each other with free meals, food baskets, free tuition, listening ear: The MalayMail has prepared a list of programmes which include free online tuition by Projek Didik.

3. #KitaJagaKita: #KitaJagaKita maintains a “one-stop shop” website of initiatives where people can either ask for or volunteer help.

SIIA Haze Outlook 2021: Reviewing 2020

Last week, the annual Haze Outlook 2021 was launched, a report on the recurring haze event in Southeast Asia authored by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) and Segi Enam Advisors. Part of the report reviewed the haze conditions—or lack thereof—in 2020.

While initial fears was that Southeast Asia would be battling both the Covid-19 pandemic and the annual transboundary haze simultaneously, no severe haze incident was recorded for in 2020. This was partly due to weather conditions within the region, i.e. a strong La Niña and a muted India Ocean Dipole phenomena resulted in one of the wettest year for Indonesia in the past decade, thereby dampening fire occurrences.

Consequently, much fewer hotspots were recorded in 2020 compared to 2019. The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) reported that some 297,000 hectares of land were burned in 2020 compared to the 1.6 million hectares in 2019.

Data: Hotspot imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management Systems (FIRMS, https://earthdata.nasa.gov/firms), peatlands from Jiren et al. (2019), and Khor Reports estimates. Source: Segi Enam Advisors (2021).

Nonetheless, the outbreak of the coronavirus has had some effect on the Indonesian fire prevention landscape. For one, the pandemic appeared to have somewhat hindered replanting activities in the agricultural sector, although businesses and experts have indicated that this was more apparent in rural areas compared to urban centres. On the other hand, Covid-19 has adversely impacted Indonesia’s fire fighting and prevention capabilities: initiatives such as outreach programmes with fire-prone villages and corporate fire management efforts were scaled back and government resources had to be redirected to manage the pandemic.

Read the full report here: SIIA Haze Report 2021