Another year of environmental neglect

By Gedsiri Suhartono

JAKARTA (JP): When it comes to environmental issues, 1996 closes with a familiar ring. They did not get enough attention. They were low on the government's priority list, and certainly not as important as economic and political issues.

Some efforts were made to invigorate people's environmental awareness, but it appears that any campaign in this area has to be tied to something like ecotourism; the blending of tourism with conservation.

One rarely hears of conservation for conservation's sake.

There were exceptions, but they were rare. Fortunately, one of them was justly rewarded.

Bahuddin Hi Pabbite, aged 84, won the prestigious Global 500 Roll of Honor awarded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in June after more than 50 years of nurturing the maleo, a beautiful Indonesian game bird in danger of extinction.

The award is given to "people who can make a difference".

Bahuddin has been gathering up to 20 eggs a day from the 2,000-square-meter stretch of shore along Tomini Bay, that overlaps into North and Central Sulawesi and tended their hatching. The 1994 winner of the Kalpataru (Tree of Life) environmental award from President Soeharto had to compete with poachers who wanted to breed the Central Sulawesi mascot for its meat and liver.

The few notable efforts by the government in environmental conservation during the year did not go far enough, reflecting the dominance of the business lobby over environmental groups.

The Proper Prokasih program to keep rivers clean continued this year. To reinforce the campaign the government introduced a system of rating factories according to their performance in ensuring that their waste discharge did not pollute rivers.

None of the factories assessed won the gold rating, reserved for those with zero pollution. Few received the green rating, which is the next best, and most were bunched in the red and black categories for the worst polluters.

The rating system however remains what it is. There have been no real follow up measures, like court action, against the worst offenders.

Skeptics said the Proper Prokasih has become little more than a government publicity stunt.

The rating system reflects the government's overall approach to environmental conservation, putting the stress on the carrot rather than the stick.

In spite of the presence of the environmental law and a number of regulations, court action remains a last resort. Instead, the campaign seeks to strengthen people's awareness of the need to conserve their environment is beginning to take center stage.

To the business community, the government stressed that it was in its interests to make its production process more environmentally friendly. Consumers in major export markets have certainly become more choosy about the products they buy, and environmental questions are a major consideration, the government argues.

Action

Any action against big businesses came chiefly from private initiatives, including non-governmental organizations.

PT Freeport Indonesia, a predominantly American gold and copper mining company with a huge operation in Irian Jaya, was constantly in the environmental news throughout the year.

In April, it published the results of its environmental audit. Dames and Moore, the international consultancy company, declared Freeport to be an environmentally conscious company, and this immediately received the support of the Office of Environment.

The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) has accused Freeport of dumping toxic tailings into the Ajkwa River near the mine. The auditors cited that while the tailings in the river are an "unsightly and unwelcome sight, particularly to the indigenous highlands people," they were found to be nontoxic.

Led by Tom Beanal, around 3,000 indigenous people filed a class-action lawsuit against Freeport-McMoran and its mining affiliate, Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold Inc. of New Orleans, at the Louisiana district court in New Orleans.

The suit claims that Freeport engages in "ecoterrorism", "cultural genocide", corporate policies that leads to violations of the tribes' human rights and destruction of the resources necessary for their survival.

The antinuclear coalition meanwhile appears set for a head-on collision with the government.

In May the government submitted a bill on nuclear power to the House of Representatives, a move widely seen as a ploy to clear the way for the government to build Indonesia's first nuclear power plant.

The government has already conducted a feasibility study for the site at the foot of Mt. Muria in Central Java. Officials have stated, even as the bill had not been endorsed by the House, that the Muria nuclear plant would begin operating in 2004.

The government has repeatedly stated that nuclear power is a last alternative source of energy but one that should be kept open in view of the rapidly increasing demands for energy and declining hydrocarbon resources.

But the way that the nuclear bill was pushed into the House's already busy agenda, and the short time given for its deliberation, showed that the plan is well underway, irrespective of the opposition and concerns.

The bill has been held up in the House because of last-minute reservations by the minority Indonesian Democratic Party faction, but it is expected to be passed next month.

Nuclear

Meanwhile, opponents of the nuclear plan were barred from organizing debates on the issue and their voices were rarely heard during the deliberations of the bill. There was some opposition from people in Central Java. Abdurrahman Wahid, the prominent Moslem scholar, joined the antinuclear coalition, vowing to go on hunger strike if the government goes ahead with building the nuclear plant in Mt. Muria.

Environmental organizations had another major cause to champion this year: the government's megaproject to convert more than one million hectares of peat land in Central Kalimantan into rice fields and other agricultural land. The Rp 5 billion project is meant to compensate for the loss of agricultural land in Java and to protect Indonesia's food security.

Environmentalists fear that the project will destroy the ecosystem, such as the ramin tree which only grows in peat-moss areas. They are also concerned about the orangutans and proboscis monkeys which live in the area.

There was no shortage of ideas and concepts on environmental conservation in 1996.

There was the plan to improve the 1982 environmental law and a suggestion to found an institution similar to the National Commission on Human Rights to deal specifically with complaints about environmental degradation.

In cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, the Office of Environment issued the Agenda 21 Indonesia, which set out a national strategy for sustainable development. Agenda 21 refers to the action plans laid out at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The National Commission on Sustainable Development is also expected to implement strategies from Agenda 21 Indonesia.

But these are concepts to be implemented sometime in the future.

When it comes to the enforcement of the environmental law and regulations in 1996, the government has very little to show for all its promises of action.