Emmy fights for 'unheard voices'

Emmy fights for 'unheard voices'

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A golf course may be a place to gather and relax for young
executives in big cities. It could even boost the yuppies' pride.
But that does not work for leading environmental activist Emmy
Hafild.

In fact, a golf course held bad memories for her.

Little Emmy, who used to ride a bike in the surrounding rubber
plantation near her house in Petumbukan -- about 40 kilometers
from Medan, the capital of North Sumatra -- was saddened after
the plantation was demolished and turned into a golf course.

"I was very angry about what happened. It boosted my spirits
and motivation to fight to protect the environment," recalled
Emmy, whose father was the local head of state-owned plantation
company PT Perkebunan.

Her motivation carried the 44-year-old woman to her current
position as the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) executive
director since 1996.

The upcoming Preparatory Committee (Prep Comm IV) for
Sustainable Development in Nusa Dua, Bali, from May 27 through
June 7, has consumed much of her time.

As the national coordinator for the Indonesian People's Forum
(IPF) -- a loose coalition of 76 organizations mostly from non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) -- she is not merely
responsible for arranging the agenda, which she and other
colleagues began to prepare, starting last July.

She also has to deal with more practical matters: How IPF's
activities can successfully be carried out.

It is not a simple task. The forum's programs, the
accommodation and travel arrangements for hundreds of IPF
participants are only a few things she must deal with.

Emmy will run dialogs for the people's forum -- the unheard
voices -- including 72 workshops, testimonies and general
lectures about debt and globalization.

The IPF was created in a bid to provide a forum for NGO
activists, farmers, poor urban dwellers, workers, women activists
and others to share their thoughts with Prep Comm, and to
publicize some issues that have been of concern to the public but
neglected by governments, such as poverty and sustainable
development.

"The Prep Comm meeting is important. At the meeting, civil
society can gain public attention and can later express its
stance to the outside world," Emmy told The Jakarta Post in an
interview at her office on Wednesday, which was often interrupted
by phone calls from her colleagues.

The IPF participants -- representing civil society -- are not
officially involved in the Prep Comm meeting, at which the core
participants are the governments.

The activists are only allowed to sit in and observe the
sessions during the Prep Comm, which will discuss the agenda to
be taken to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg at the end of this year.

The Prep Comm will have a lot of meaning for Emmy as this will
be her last big forum before she retires next month from Walhi.

Inheriting her father's spirit, she left her hometown and was
admitted to the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB). As the
government banned students from entering politics in 1978 through
the NKK/BKK programs, she poured her energy into joining nature-
lovers' groups.

Having completed her degree in agronomy in 1982, Emmy was once
doubtful about her future. Business was out of the question as
she was not money-minded. Her rebellious attitude barred her from
entering the bureaucracy. Finally, she decided to become a green
activist by entering Yayasan Indonesia Hijau (Indonesian Green
Foundation).

She later joined the Cooperation Secretariat for Nature
Conservation in Indonesia (Skephi) and finally Walhi in 1985, for
which she started to be a green advocate.

She crafted her name in the environmental diary of Indonesia,
after she joined a large protest against the World Bank's
generous funds for Indonesia's transmigration program. The
program was considered to be damaging to the environment in
islands outside Java as it required huge deforestation in
transmigration areas.

Her activities grabbed the public's attention and she was
later asked to testify before the U.S. Congress in 1987, the
first testimony by a foreigner about a U.S. loan to a developing
country. Due to her testimony, the U.S. government halted its
disputed loan to Indonesia for its transmigration program.

Another of Emmy's landmark achievements was her fight against
U.S. mining company Freeport's operations in Timika, Irian Jaya,
throughout the 1990s.

Her struggle, under the banner of Walhi, against Freeport was
fierce. Freeport was accused of causing environmental damage in
Timika.

Due to her activities, she was also accused of masterminding
the Amungne local tribe's resistance to the company's operations.

But she was later acclaimed by Time magazine as one of the
"heroes of the planet" in 1999, along with four other
international green activists.

Emmy plans to leave her hectic life behind her after
retirement from Walhi, before switching to another career.

"I'll spend most of my time with my family," said the mother
of two, whose husband works as a professional in the information
technology field.

On the environment, which has been her lifelong commitment,
she could only dream: "I dream that we will have a president who
is greatly concerned about the environment. Sadly, we have not
yet had such a president."

The need for such a president is paramount, as 70 percent of
the environmental damage here has been caused by government
policies.