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In this chapter, the authors use emerging works on geopolitical ecologies to analyze the relations between tourism and the transboundary haze disaster in northern Thailand. The region’s ‘smoky season’, which occurs between February and April of each year, has become a recurring seasonal haze disaster that is reported to be the combined result of biomass burning and urban air pollution. Drawing on ethnographic research among urban tourism practitioners, as well as a critical discourse analysis of popular and social media reports and commentaries, the authors argue that geopolitical discourses of transboundary haze production are shaped by tourists and the tourism industry in ways that perpetuate inequitably distributed disaster risk. Transboundary haze, the authors further contend, has become an ecological actor that co-produces discourses of escape among mobile tourists and residents. This research contributes to emerging work that conceptualises the geopolitical ecologies of transboundary environmental disasters in relation to tourism mobilities in southeast Asia.

The rapid deterioration of the earth’s natural ecosystems are increasing the risk of human morbidity and mortality worldwide. Hydrometeorological hazards are concentrating contaminants from the damaged environment and exposing large vulnerable populations to life threating illnesses and death. This study performed a retrospective health risk assessment on two recent events where such impacts unfolded, namely, the 2015 south east Equatorial Asia smoke haze disaster and the 2016 Melbourne thunderstorm asthma epidemic. The purpose of this paper is to test if the characterisation of health risk warranted earlier and more effective risk reduction activities prior to the disasters occurring.

A retrospective health risk characterisation assessment was performed combing United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Health Aspect in Disaster Risk Assessment (2017) framework with a thematic and targeted word literature review to identify the level of risk knowledge prior to each event. A risk characterisation matrix was then created to characterise the health risk of each hazard event.

The 2015 south east Equatorial Asia smoke haze disaster risk assessment was characterised as “extreme” health risk and the 2016 Melbourne thunderstorm asthma epidemic was characterised as “high” health risk.

Reaching the goals of the Sendai Framework require strategies and plans which urgently address the catastrophic level of mortality risk posed by exposure to environmental contaminants.

Innovative approaches and partnerships are necessary to mitigate the risk from the deteriorating health of the environment and natural ecosystems, along with disaster response initiatives that reduce exposure of vulnerable people on a large scale.

This chapter introduces the tourism–disaster–conflict nexus through a comprehensive review of the contemporary social science literature. After reviewing conceptual definitions of tourism, disaster and conflict, the chapter explores various axes that link through this nexus. The linkages between tourism and disaster include tourism as a trigger or amplifier of disasters, the impacts of disasters on the tourism industry, tourism as a driver of disaster recovery and disaster risk reduction strategies in the tourism sector. Linkages between tourism and conflict include the idea that tourism can be a force for peace and stability, the niche status of danger zone or dark heritage tourism, the concept of phoenix tourism in post-conflict destination rebranding, tourism and cultural conflicts, and tourism’s conflicts over land and resources. Linkages between disaster and conflict include disasters as triggers or intensifiers of civil conflict, disaster diplomacy and conflict resolution, disaster capitalism, and gender-based violence and intra-household conflict in the wake of disasters. These are some of the conversations that organise this volume, and this introductory chapter ends with a summary of the chapters that follow.

This paper aims to analyze the legal framework of land degradation in Asia and provide market shared liability as a new theory to solve a problem regarding the difficulty for judges to determine the percentage of compensation for corporations responsible for land degradation. This paper aims also presents a theory to solve the problem of the vacuum of legal responsibility theory, which can make corporations proportionally responsible in terms of causing land degradation.

This was done through legal research methods, mainly with systematical interpretation. The approach used in this paper is conceptual, statute and comparative approach.

By analyzing the related legal norms, it can be understood that in Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, there are regulations regarding land degradation. However, the regulations in these countries are not specific and tend to focus on nature conservation, which has an impact on handling land degradation. Therefore, it needs special regulation to deal with land degradation. One of the things that need to be regulated about land degradation is a market shared liability.

This research is limited to regulation in the Asia region. By analyzing the regulation, this paper will provide an analysis about the land degradation regulation mechanism in Asia and give an analysis about market shared liability as one of the solution to handling land degradation. Having the same ground rules will create synergies between countries in Asia to handle land degradation.

This paper is the first systematic legal research comparing regulations from three nations in Asia on land degradation and the first paper to provide market shared liability as a solution to handling land degradation.