'Decentralization vital in conservation drive'

'Decentralization vital in conservation drive'

JAKARTA (JP): Decisions on conservation issues are best made
at a local level, environmental experts said yesterday.

"It is dangerous for the central government to set uniform
policies regarding biodiversity," Indonesia's former environment
minister Emil Salim said during a panel discussion on the first
day of the Global Biodiversity Forum here.

"Uniformity also contradicts biodiversity, which is very
specific to various parts of the country," Emil said.

A Norwegian-based environmental consultant, Michael Wells,
agreed at the discussion on the need for decentralization.

Local administrations are likely to pay more respect to local
traditions and be more responsive to local concerns, according to
Wells, an environmental consultant.

"Increased decentralization has ... become evident in many
aspects of biodiversity conservation," he added.

An example is where communities and other local stakeholders
"resist development plans which are detrimental to the
environment," he said.

Indonesia's State Minister of Environment Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja, in his keynote address to the forum, earlier urged
Indonesians "to learn as well as to unlearn in order to be
faithful to our national motto, Unity in Diversity."

"We are increasingly concerned that the present mainstream
development approach has needlessly caused suffering and
impoverishment to people," Sarwono said.

This, he said, is "not necessarily because of ill-will, but
sometimes because of a lack of understanding and respect for
unique ways of life."

Emil said he hoped that decentralization could be raised in
the inter-governmental Second Conference of Parties to the
Convention of Biodiversity between Nov. 6 and Nov. 17.

Clause 11 of the Convention calls on signatories to "adopt
economically and socially sound measures that act as incentives"
for conservation.

The Convention was issued at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil.

Emil stressed that the central government must retain the
responsibility for "creating the climate" in which local
governments can be responsive to the needs of environmental
preservation.

Currently, he said, the trial period of Indonesia's political
decentralization is giving more authority to the regency
administrations.

But the regency administrations cannot yet play a role in
conservation because of their "built-in tendency" to seek
revenue, he said. Generating revenue is one basis on which their
abilities can be judged by the central government.

Different incentives are needed to make conservation
attractive to local administrators, he said.

Emil P. Bolongaita of the Manila-based Asian Institute of
Management told the forum about the decentralization in forestry
conservation in the southern Philippines.

The new experience, he said, led to "interventions by national
officials to recover decentralized power," and the "refusal of
non-government organizations to work with local officials."

Four sessions are planned for the Biodiversity Forum, which
brings together more than 400 officials and activists concerned
with the environment from all over the world.

Other sessions include discussions on marine and forest
biodiversity and on access to genetic resources. The Forum
continues today. (anr)