Southeast Asian nations agreed on Wednesday to adopt a new system to improve monitoring of smog caused by fires, an attempt to make plantation companies more accountable following the region's worst air pollution crisis in 16 years.
Thick haze, mostly from land-clearing fires in Indonesia, blanketed Singapore and swathes of neighboring Malaysia earlier this year, stoking diplomatic tensions as air pollution climbed to the most hazardous levels since a similar crisis in 1997.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which began a two-day regional summit in Brunei on Wednesday, has been criticized in the past for not taking stronger action to prevent the chronic pollution problem.
Even with improved monitoring, critics say the region lacks the legal mechanisms or strong institutions to enforce compliance.
Under the Singapore-developed system, governments in the region will share satellite data to pinpoint fires and identify companies, most of them palm-oil producers, that own the affected land.
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