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.