2Fires and Haze in Southeast Asia

This case study examines the Southeast Asian fires and resultant haze not so much to assess the biophysical causes and results but, rather, the implications on cooperation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the region. By describing the efforts within ASEAN to deal with the fires and re-gional haze pollution, we examine not the environment per se, but the ASEAN processes and norms as they apply to the environment. The study also draws on, and makes suggestions regarding, ASEAN in other areas of activity and concern in order to understand its environment-related ac-tivities as part of a larger picture. The study considers how cooperation might be developed within ASEAN or the wider Asia Pacific on the haze issue. In addressing both institutional and environmental questions, it seeks to be as much about ASEAN and Asia Pacific cooperation as it is about the environment. First, ASEAN’s development across different concerns and fields of ac-tivity is surveyed, to situate environmental cooperation in a broader in-stitutional context. Second, ASEAN’s environmental heritage and its cooperation to protect that heritage are reviewed with particular atten-tion given to the ASEAN Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which is the only attempt to date to conclude a bind-ing environmental treaty. Third, the study reviews ASEAN efforts to deal with the organization’s greatest environmental challenge to date, namely, the Indonesian fires and haze, and, in so doing, it suggests why efforts thus far have been insufficient. Fourth, ways are suggested in which the fires and haze could be effectively addressed by ASEAN or the Asia Pacific community, and consideration is given to the broader institutiona