Environmental analysis on golf course turned down

Environmental analysis on golf course turned down

JAKARTA (JP): The City Administration's Commission on environmental impact has turned down an Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) on the development of a nine hole golf course on Bira Island, North Jakarta.

Ali Azhar, an executive of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the study was rejected because it failed to meet requirements set by the commission.

Amdal is a mandatory assessment which must be presented by a developer to ensure that any development will not produce unwanted effects to the surrounding environment.

The rejected analysis was prepared by a consulting firm, which was hired by the golf course project owner, who in 1993 began cutting down the island's forest to build the 20-hectare golf course despite the absence of the required assessment.

Bira Island is one of the 78 islands in North Jakarta which is part of the 108,000-hectare national marine park in the Seribu Islands chain.

The absence of the necessary assessment of the project immediately sparked bitter criticisms both from environment organizations and members of the City Council, who insisted that the project owner make the environmental impact analysis.

The owner of the project made the study, but it was rejected by the Amdal Commission. It was the third time an analysis had been presented to the Commission, first on Sept. 22 last year, then on Dec. 2 and again on Feb. 10 this year.

"None of the three presentations meet the requirement so the Amdal Commission decided to reject them," Ali said.

The study, for example, did not give satisfying answers to the Amdal Commission's questions regarding the use of harmful pesticide on the golf course, water usage on the island and the up to 60 percent land utilization limit of the island, which could be used for tourism purposes, he said.

Ali said that the Amdal Commission, whose members consist of representatives of the city administration, the Environmental Impact Management Agency, the Jakarta chapter of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, Walhi and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), will form an independent team to make a new study.

"The members of the team will include representatives of the Amdal Commission, independent experts and the project owner," Ali added. (hhr)