Focusing on critical politics of environment<\/p>\n
The Politics of Environment in Southeast Asia;
\nPhilip Hirsch and Carol Warren, editors;
\nRouteledge;
\nxiii + 325pp<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): When a few weeks ago Minister of Forestry and
\nPlantations Muslimin Nasution declared that his ministry had
\nuncovered Soeharto family and crony-connected forest holdings
\ncovering nine million hectares, "an area the size of Java",
\nnobody was especially surprised. Shocked, yes. Angry, yes. But
\nnot surprised. This question, after all, goes right to the heart
\nof the New Order power structure.<\/p>\n
In September 1984, the International Union for the
\nConservation of Nature issued a report stating that the 1982 and
\n1983 forest fires in Kalimantan, that had blanketed Southeast
\nAsia with smog, constituted the "biggest environmental
\ncatastrophe of the 20th century". The East Kalimantan governor
\nresponded with maximum insouciance; it was "no big deal", he
\nsaid. We all know what would have happened if he had said
\notherwise.<\/p>\n
That was 1984. Fourteen years on and the BBC was reporting
\nthat Kalimantan fires were burning across "an area the size of
\nEngland and Wales". Further disaster was being visited on Sumatra
\nand Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
There is an indisputable connection between this
\n"environmental catastrophe" and the politics of the New Order.
\nWhy were no major prosecutions carried out of forest
\nconcessionaires in the affected areas? One has to say that it was
\nsimply because the constellation of forces around the former
\npresident had too much at stake.<\/p>\n
Take East Kalimantan, where Soeharto's second son, Bambang
\nTrihatmodjo, alone has holdings of over 700,000 hectares; then
\nlook at Muhammad "Bob" Hasan with 1.63 million hectares in Aceh,
\nEast Kalimantan and Southeast Sulawesi. It would be extremely
\nnaive to believe that these are the kind of people with a finely
\ntuned environmental consciousness. Hasan's own plywood company,
\nwe are told, increased "production seven-fold over the decade
\n1981 to 1991", a measure of his rapacity if ever there was one.<\/p>\n
What this excellent collection of essays in Politics of
\nEnvironment in SE Asia; Resources and Resistance sets out to
\nexamine is the emergence of a new politics of the environment and
\nthe relationship between power holders across the Southeast Asian
\nregion and the dynamic environmental action groups that have
\nappeared almost everywhere.<\/p>\n
The great changes wrought by the so-called "Asian miracle"
\nhave impacted massively on the environment, as the lugubrious
\nstatistics quoted above prove, but have also given rise to
\nresistance. It is no coincidence that Indonesia's vibrant student
\nmovement began in part with on-campus conflict between
\nenvironmental NGOs and pro-New Order student cadet corps. Neither
\nis it a coincidence that groups such as Malaysia's Sahabat Alam
\nhave felt the thick end of state repression.<\/p>\n
Environmentalism, written off in neighboring Malaysia as some
\nkind of Western conspiracy against the country, is a politics of
\nurgency, and is now motivating small but significant groups in
\nall the ASEAN countries with the exceptions of Brunei and
\nassociate member, Myanmar. The latter, of course, is perhaps even
\nmore in need of environmental intervention than any other as its
\nonce legendary teak forests disappear to finance the kleptocratic
\nState Peace and Development Council (formerly SLORC).<\/p>\n
Injustice in the course of development certainly shaped a
\npopular anger, as George Junus Aditjondro illuminates in Large
\nDam Victims and Their Defenders, in which he looks at the
\nKedungombo case. Here, an environmental question impacted on a
\nlocal community with no experience of organizing. Javanese wong
\ncilik (common people) were not expected to speak up but the
\ninvolvement of sympathetic educated activists gave them voice.<\/p>\n
Aditjondro details several other Indonesian dam schemes and
\nthe variety of responses to them; the notable case of the
\nKotopanjang dam in Riau demonstrates how determined local
\nresistance, in this instance over more than 17 years, could be
\neffected despite the New Order's heavy-handedness.<\/p>\n
Dams are notoriously associated with grandiose power projects
\nof authoritarian governments in developing countries; from
\nNasser's Aswan Dam to Beijing's Three Gorges scheme, many have
\nproved disastrous.<\/p>\n
Michael Mitchell looks at one river "development" project with
\nthe potential to be even more ruinous, the Mekong Basin scheme.
\n"Centered on national and international bureaucracies well
\nremoved from the social bases and needs of the people living in
\nthe basin", as Mitchell puts it, this scheme would involve six
\ncountries -- Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and China
\n-- all with a wretched recent record of environmental protection.<\/p>\n
Laos and Cambodia are so strategically weak that their opening
\nup to the full force of global capital -- which is what this
\nscheme would entail -- would probably mean the end for them.<\/p>\n
If one can easily point a finger at the New Order power
\nholders, what of the leaders of other countries? Perhaps the most
\ndismal forestry record of all belongs not to this country nor to
\nneighboring Malaysia or the Philippines but to Myanmar. The self-
\nstyled State Peace and Development Council has ruled over a
\nfeverish deforestation in its once timber-rich country and its
\nmembers have enriched themselves greatly in the process.<\/p>\n
Raymond Bryant examines this in The Politics of Forestry in
\nBurma and demonstrates how well-capitalized Thai logging firms
\nhave been among the major beneficiaries. The Burma regime's
\nprofligacy is illustrated by its practice of making sales of
\ntimber up to two years in advance "in order to raise quick
\nrevenue".<\/p>\n
This brings us to what seems to be an inescapable truth: that
\nthe power elites in the region collaborate with one another in
\nresource extraction, and the most environmentally unfriendly
\nentrepreneurs are often to be found working hand-in-glove with
\nthe most politically repressive regimes.<\/p>\n
Why, for instance, during last year's forest fires here were
\nMalaysian scientists ordered by their government not to issue
\nstatements on the Indonesia-derived smog hazard that was ruining
\nthe health of millions of Malaysians? Because, one fancies, its
\nown record is dismal, as Michael Leigh demonstrates in Logging in
\nSarawak, an essay which begins with the statement that a forest
\nis a political as well as an economic resource. A political
\npatronage system has grown up in Sarawak around the granting of
\nlogging licenses.<\/p>\n
Leigh says that "what is unambiguous to those concerned with
\nthe actual exploitation is that there is a clear financial
\nimperative to market the greatest volume of saw logs as quickly
\nas possible".<\/p>\n
The unregulated free market then is the enemy of the forest.
\nAs it is, too, of Dayak children's health in heavily logged areas
\nwhere the lack of wild boar has caused a major fall in protein
\nintake.<\/p>\n
There are areas of environmental concern that this volume does
\nnot touch upon, the trade in wildlife being one. Recent seizures
\nof thousands of cobras worth hundreds of millions of rupiah at
\nthe Soekarno-Hatta International Airport prove that lucrative
\nbusiness is a serious issue still, as, indeed, any walk along the
\nBarito or Jatinegara bird markets in Jakarta would also show.<\/p>\n
However, the writers have done a fine job of examining a
\nnumber of the major issues affecting the politics of the
\nenvironment in this great region, including the slippery question
\nof the cultural impact of tourism.<\/p>\n
The book will come as an extremely helpful addition to
\nliterature on the Southeast Asian environment. Malaysian
\nbiologist David Lee sounded the tocsin in the early 1980s with
\nThe Sinking Ark, a well-informed but essentially pessimistic tome
\nabout the deterioration of the regional biosphere. The
\nintervening years have given greater cause for concern, and
\nHirsch and Warren have brought together a mass of penetrating
\nanalysis and detail to illuminate the necessary ongoing debates.<\/p>\n
-- David Jardine<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/focusing-on-critical-politics-of-environment-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }