SIIA Director Lee Chen Chen was quoted in TODAY on 27 Aug 2016. An excerpt is below.
SINGAPORE — With Singaporeans waking up to a smoky, hazy gloom on Friday (Aug 26) — one that worsened over the day — the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) chief executive officer has registered Singapore’s concerns with his Indonesian counterpart over air quality deteriorating, should fires in Indonesia continue.
In a letter to his Indonesian counterpart on Friday, NEA CEO Ronnie Tay urged Indonesia to “continue taking the necessary actions to prevent and mitigate the fires during this dry season”, and asked for an update on the situation in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
A team of Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) researchers in Riau said their local sources found that the fires in northern Riau were not on concession lands. Five out of some 30 fires there are severe and could intensify and spread into concession areas, said SIIA director (policy programmes) Lee Chen Chen.
Full Article: NEA relays concerns to Jakarta as air quality worsens [TODAY, 27 Aug 2016]
