Jakarta Declaration on Environment and Development
 18 September 1997

Deeply appreciative of the statement made by H.E. President Soeharto at the official opening of the 7th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Environment;

Aware that prosperity, equity, and a safe and healthy environment are interrelated elements of the human dream for a better future in the next millennium;

Further aware that economic, environmental and social goals are integrally linked and by having policies that reflect that interrelationship, the lives of each generation will be better than the last;

Recognizing that continued, long-term economic growth is essential to the prosperity of the ASEAN people and is fundamental to sustainable development;

Further recognizing that sustainable development is the framework that integrates economic, environmental and social goals in discourse and policies that enhance the quality of life for the people of ASEAN at present and in the future;

Concerned that global economic growth and environmental challenges have compelled us to seriously take into account the ecological impact on the national, regional and global economic growth;

Deeply concerned that the world is gripped by the anxiety caused by fires, floods and typhoons, and that the ASEAN region is not spared from the threat of these natural disasters;

Further concerned on the ecological, economic, health and political impacts brought about by transboundary pollution caused by land and forest fires;

Conscious that industrialization will continue to be a critical part of the ASEAN economy into the foreseeable future;

Further conscious that the rapid industrial growth and resource use may increase the environmental pollution and destruction;

Committed that to overcome these environmental problems, ASEAN nations must take more concrete joint action;

WE, THE ASEAN MINISTERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, HEREBY AGREE:

1. To sustain a healthy economy based on eco-efficiency that grows sufficiently to create meaningful jobs, reduce poverty, and provide the opportunity for a higher quality of life and a high quality of environment for all ASEAN people in an increasingly competitive world;

2. To produce, use and export globally competitive goods and services that use resources efficiently and sustainably;

3. To cooperate and render assistance wherever available, to prevent and control all domestic sources of pollution and activities that could contribute towards transboundary pollution, including haze formation;

4. To welcome international cooperation and assistance to strengthen ASEAN capability to combat transboundary pollution, including haze.

5. To use, conserve, protect, restore and manage natural resources and the environment, including the conservation of biodiversity, in ways that help ensure long-term social, economic, and environmental benefits for current and future generations and in this regard to:

6. To create a widely held ethic of stewardship that strongly encourages individuals, communities, institutions and corporations to take full responsibility for the economic, environmental and social consequences of their actions, leading towards a vision of a clean and green ASEAN with a safe, healthy, and high quality of life for its peoples by the year 2020;

7. To support, enable and empower individuals, communities, and corporate entities to achieve their eco-efficiency objectives in the most flexible, expeditious, and cost-effective manner possible;

8. To take leadership role in addressing global environmental issues to ensure that solutions adopted are fair and equitable to developing countries and would provide developing countries with adequate means to fulfill their obligations;

9. To reaffirm support for UNEP and its continued role as a forum for promoting global environmental well being, and hope that its restructuring would simplify the policy making process in order to expedite program implementation and enhance its regional roles;

10. To urge developed countries to fulfill their commitments made at UNCED by providing additional resources and transfer of technology for effective implementation of Agenda 21;

11. To urge developed countries to commit targets of limitation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Berlin Mandate;

12. To urge all parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal to expedite the ratification of the amendment to the convention (Decision III/1), on the banning of the export of hazardous wastes from Annex VII countries to developing countries.

Done in Jakarta, Indonesia, this Eighteenth Day of September in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-seven.

YANG AMAT MULIA PENGIRAN INDERA WIJAYA PENGIRAN DR. HAJI ISMAIL BIN PENGIRAN HAJI DAMIT

Minister of Development, Brunei Darussalam

Mr. SARWONO KUSUMAATMADJA

State Minister for the Environment, Indonesia

Dr. SIENE SAPHANGTHONG

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Lao People's Democratic Republic

DATUK LAW HIENG DING

Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment, Malaysia

Mr. VICTOR O. RAMOS

Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Philippines

Mr. YEO CHEOW TONG

Minister for the Environment and Minister for Health, Singapore

Mr. KASEM SNIDVONGS

Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Thailand

Prof. CHU TUAN NHA

Vice Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Vietnam