City administration prepares new reclamation analysis

City administration prepares new reclamation analysis

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In an effort to seek a legal basis for its reclamation plan, the
city administration is now preparing a new environmental impact
analysis (Amdal) which will only need approval from the City
Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedalda).

The move was made after State Minister for the Environment
Nabiel Makarim rejected the reclamation project of some 2,700
hectares of the city's northern coastline, which according to the
minister was not feasible either socially or environmentally.

The minister's rejection is based on a recommendation of the
Central Amdal's Assessment Commission established to assess the
Amdal documents submitted by the Jakarta Waterfront
Implementation Board, the body behind the reclamation project.

Ridwan Panjaitan, an official at the City Environment
Management Agency, said that the recommendation of the Central
Amdal Assessment Commission was invalid.

Ridwan argued that based on Government Regulation No. 27/1999
on Amdal, the Central Amdal Assessment Commission was only given
six months to study the Amdal document. That assessment period
expired in November 1999.

He also said based on a decree of the state minister for the
environment No. 20/2000, the authority to assess the
environmental impact of a project located between one and three
miles from the sea was under the auspices of a regency or city.

"Therefore, we are preparing the new Amdal as recommended by
the Central Amdal Assessment Commission which makes the basis for
the minister's rejection invalid," Ridwan told The Jakarta Post
on Thursday on the sidelines of a seminar on the reclamation
project.

Meanwhile, a researcher of the Indonesian Center for
Environmental Law (ICEL), Mas Achmad Santoso stressed that
rejection of the Amdal by the State Minister for the Environment
as stipulated in Ministerial Decree No. 14/2003 issued early in
March was final.

"If Governor Sutiyoso manages to lobby President Megawati and
Megawati annuls the decree, the public could take the case to the
state administrative court," Achmad Santoso said.

Several days after Nabiel rejected the project, Governor
Sutiyoso said that he would go ahead with the project. In Decree
No. 14/2003, Nabiel also demanded President Megawati
Soekarnoputri revoke Presidential Decree No. 52/1995, which
became the legal basis of the project.

According to Achmad, if the city administration insists on its
plan to reclaim the northern sea, it should be totally a new
project with a new approach and the Amdal study should be
completely different from the one which had been assessed.

Achmad said that the wish of the city administration to create
a new Amdal that would be used as a legal basis of the
reclamation project was further evidence that economic
considerations always defeat ecological principles.

In trying to stop the project, the Office of the State
Minister for the Environment and the environmental organization
could seek a judicial review with the Supreme Court of
Presidential Decree No.52/1995 which became the legal basis for
the reclamation.

He added that people who feel that they may suffer as a result
of the project, like fishermen, could file a class action suit
against related agencies like the Jakarta Waterfront
Implementation Board and the city administration.

The reclamation project will cover some 2,700 hectares of sea
along 32 kilometers of the northern coastal area. The project is
estimated to be worth some Rp 20 trillion and would be
implemented over a 30-year period.

A number of social and environmental problems that would be
caused by the project as indicated in the Central Amdal
Commission report include a prediction that the sea level would
rise by around 12 centimeters, fishermen would lose their source
of income, the sea ecosystem would be damaged, and pollution
would worsen in Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu) regency.