Environment minister shows diplomatic acumen

Environment minister shows diplomatic acumen

By Sugianto Tandra

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Environment Juwono Sudarsono
is a good listener, an eloquent speaker and a humble man,
characteristics which should stand him in good stead as the
glaring international spotlight focuses on the country's
environmental disasters.

Praise for Juwono, 56, was voiced not only by aides, but also
by about 40 media representatives he invited for an informal
meeting at his office yesterday. The professor of international
politics invited his guests to be candid in their concern and
criticism on how his non-portfolio office can deal with
increasingly difficult environmental problems.

The minister, concurrently the chairman of the Environmental
Impact Management Agency, also fielded questions about why fires
now ravaging thousands of hectares of forests only ranked fifth
on the government's stated list of priorities.

Reporters also asked this noted political analyst to keep true
to his forthright comments of the past.

Juwono responded to all of the questions, "as a lecturer would
do", one of his aides said to The Jakarta Post.

He was also able to impress his listeners, especially when he
was speaking about how "democracy, human rights and environment
are an inseparable trinity" which, if implemented, would lend a
character of "social justice" to the country's development.

"The existence of social justice doesn't mean that everybody
has an equal amount of everything. It means the opportunity of
those in the lower levels of society is ensured by those already
enjoying the fruit of development.

"It means that people in power care for those under them."

The former deputy governor of the military think-tank,
National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas) added: "History has
taught us that social injustice is the beginning of the crumbling
of governments."

Implementation of the trinity in development is what is known
as sustainable development, he continued.

Democratization will in the long term call for
decentralization of the management of natural resources so the
local people will enjoy the benefits of the environment, and
promotion of human rights will advocate that people's civil,
political, social, cultural and economical rights be upheld,
Juwono said.

Through the effective implementation of the trinity, "people
will have courage to cry foul if government or businesses do
something wrong to the environment".

Bait

In a display of his diplomatic prowess, he skillfully averted
questions which would have pitted him against other ministers.

"I will not avoid any questions from journalists, but when it
comes to overstepping the boundaries of other ministers'
jurisdiction, that must be reconsidered."

He reverted instead to tackling questions about the fires
which ravaged about 400,000 hectares of forests in East
Kalimantan, causing an estimated Rp 7.5 trillion (US$937 million)
in timber losses over the past four months.

The resulting smog threatens to blanket the drought-hit
province, populated by more than two million people, unless winds
can blow it away.

Although Juwono said he would answer questions openly about
the fires, he added a caveat "that this ministry is only a
supporting ministry".

His office was only supplying information, monitoring and
giving recommendations on ways to anticipate more fires, he
added.

"The ministries of forestry, home affairs and mines and energy
are the ones with full technical authority on the handling of the
fires," he said in response to a question from a reporter who
compared him to his predecessors, the outspoken Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja and the friendly but fiery Emil Salim.

"Then, if a disaster takes place in a province, it will be the
responsibility of the governor."

Immediately after he was sworn in last month, the term
"environmental diplomacy" was coined to justify how an
international politics professor and political commentator would
handle environmental issues.

He demonstrated his diplomatic wiles once again when asked if
his background would help in dealing with all the undesirable
international attention the country had received on its
environmental record recently.

"In this case, you should ask the President," he responded.

"But my job, to put it simply, is to keep this lingkungan
hidup (Indonesian for the living environment) from becoming a
lingkungan mati (dead environment)."

The minister also promised that he would remain an "idealist
in concepts, but a realist in carrying them out in the field.

"Try to understand this position, but trust me that the
(critical) observer in me will remain."

Speaking as an observer, he said the economic crisis should be
viewed as an opportunity for the nation to remain committed to
the concept of sustainable development.

"In the next 18 months to 24 months when the crisis will
subside, let's implement a sustainable development program."

He closed the meeting by reciting a line from a classic
Indonesian children's song, Ibu Pertiwi (Motherland), which state
that the country's forests, mountains, paddy fields and oceans
are its wealth.

"Don't let them become just a memory," he said.