Jakarta. UN Secretary-General António Guterres commended Indonesia’s forest protection during his Jakarta visit on Monday despite the country’s haze choking its Southeast Asian neighbors.

Guterres wrapped up his three-day Jakarta trip by delivering a foreign policy speech in front of the country’s senior diplomats and politicians. The seasoned diplomat put emphasis on climate, reminding Jakarta that it has a “key role to play” in limiting global warming as the world’s “sixth-largest emitter”. It was also then that Guterres briefly commented on what Indonesia had done to curb biodiversity loss in its forests.

“You must safeguard the world's biodiversity. ... I commend Indonesia for all [what] you are doing to protect your extraordinary biological diversity, including forests, seas, and peatlands,” Guterres told the forum.

"And strengthening monitoring and enforcement to safeguard this natural heritage for humanity.”

Guterres, who will step down from his role by the year-end, repeated his warning that the climate change had sped up. He warned that vulnerable countries would be the ones to pay the “highest price — from displacement and hunger, to instability and economic losses”.

His comment came at an ironic time as blaze had been torching forests in Kalimantan and Sumatra over the past months, sending hazardous smoke to the neighbors.

Singapore has even put as many as 10 Indonesian firms on notice over haze.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently took it to social media that his country’s offer of water-bombing helicopters to help Indonesia tame the flames were still on the table. He also proposed a “cooperation mechanism at the ASEAN level” for better coordination.

Also on Monday, Chief Security Minister Dudung Abdurachman told reporters that Indonesia still “could deal with the [flames] on its own”, when pressed whether the government would declare the haze as a national disaster.

In a separate briefing later that day, Dudung said that Jakarta had “allowed” Malaysia to send its assistance, which included 3 helicopters and 52 personnel. Singapore will also deploy help to extinguish the fire.

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