Haze pollution from Indonesia’s forest fires is spreading across Southeast Asia, and Singapore has indicated that it plans to issue legal notices concerning transboundary haze pollution to business partners, including those in Japan.
Haze pollution caused by forest fires in Indonesia has spread to Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere, worsening across Southeast Asia. Singapore’s National Environment Agency indicated that in October it plans to issue legal notices under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act to a total of 20 companies, including 10 Indonesian plantation companies and major companies based in Singapore. These are said to include key suppliers to Japanese companies.
According to estimates by CREA, an estimated 3,560 people died from air-pollution-related causes in September 2026 alone, while the nationwide average PM2.5 concentration reached 36 µg/m3. On Sumatra, concentrations reached as high as 10 times that level, and on Kalimantan they exceeded 24 times that level, expanding the health damage suffered by the general public. The number of people exposed to unhealthy or worse air-pollution levels in September reached 58 million.