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Najib: Environment and health
issues must be given priorityKUALA LUMPUR: The Government is
actively trying to strike a balance
between environmental conservation and economic development,
said
Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.The Prime Minister said this was not
an
easy path for developing countries, noting that they were often
more
exposed and vulnerable to environmental threats."Integrating
economic,
health and environmental policies is easier said than done. It
takes
strong leadership to instil change, ensure a common vision
and
enhance cross-sectoral cooperation at the national, regional and
global
levels," he said in his address before launching the Third
Ministerial
Meeting of the Regional Forum on Environment and Health in
Southeast and East Asian Countries on Tuesday.
Najib warned that it was increasingly clear that the environment
could
no longer be considered an afterthought to economic development,
with
nations facing common environmental health problems in a
global
economy.
He stressed that environmental and health issues must be a
priority in
formulating development plans."Governments that choose to
place
environment and health considerations at the heart of their
development
can achieve sustainable economic growth and social stability
while
safeguarding the environment and conserving resources for the
future,"
he said.
He said ongoing development in Malaysia would "inevitably put
new
pressures" on its rivers, land, air and seas.Efforts to mitigate
them, he
said, included introducing the Malaysian Environmental
Performance
Index to aid with environmental policy-making, with
peer-group
benchmarking to identify best practices. He said Malaysia had
also
implemented the National Policy on the Environment since 1992,
while
high-impact economic development projects were subjected to
mandatory environmental and health impact assessments (EIA
and
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HIA). "We have tried to prioritise transparency, both in our
approach to
environmental management and in the monitoring of standards
and
practices. We have also reinforced the importance of
environmental
health at every level of the decision-making process," he
said.
Najib also called for a mindset change so that people understood
that
short-term benefits, such as unscrupulous logging for timber,
would
undermine Malaysia's long-term aims of achieving sustainable
development. "We will not return to a simple reverence for
nature. The
pressures of development and population are too great for that.
But we
can and must inculcate a new respect for our environment. Our
people
and our planet depend on it," he said.
Najib said Southeast Asia's annual transboundary haze remained
one
of the region's most persistent and challenging environmental
issues.He
said this year's severe episode, where air quality had
reached
hazardous in several areas, was a "stinging reminder" of the
human
costs of environmental degradation. "As ever, the worst affected
are the
young, old and sick," he said, adding that the haze had
affected
people's health and livelihoods and threatened tourism, health
and the
environment.
Delegates at the meeting included Natural Resources and
Environment
Minister Datuk Seri G. Palanivel, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr
S.
Subramaniam, World Health Organisation regional director for
the
Western Pacific Dr Shin Young-Soo and United Nations
Environment
Programme Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific Dr
Young-Woo
Park.
