'Environmental concerns not widely shared'
JAKARTA (JP): Public and government indifference has hampered the effectiveness of environmental campaigns, environmentalists said yesterday.
Mas Achmad Santosa, director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, said the bureaucrats and the public had peripheral values on the environment.
According to Achmad, many ministers ostentatiously urged businesses to be environmentally responsible without truly caring about the dangers of environmental destruction.
The public's awareness on environmental issues and environmental dangers was scarcely sufficient to support the campaigns, he said.
"People are only reminded of the importance of caring for the environment when an ecological tragedy occurs," Achmad told The Jakarta Post.
Faced with these challenges, environmental non-governmental organizations are crucial because they push for greater public pressure on environmental issues, Achmad said. But this task seems to be hampered by the non conducive political climate.
"If we try to raise people's consciousness on their rights when environmental degradation occurs, we will be labeled all sorts of names," he said, referring to the government's idiosyncratic way of labeling ideas which differ from its own as leftist or communist.
According to Achmad, the existing environmental law provides a good starting point for environmental campaigns. But there are still problems with the coordination and control of watchdog agencies.
Rusdian Lubis, the director for development control and monitoring of environmental impact assessment from the Environmental Impact Management Agency, said that some environmental campaigns were hampered because some businesses did not conduct environmental impact assessments.
The businesses wanting to build factories, which may produce hazardous and toxic substances, are required to build waste treatment facilities according to their business licenses.
"But in reality, many businessmen are given licenses without ever conducting an (environmental) assessment," Achmad said.
Rusdian retorted that because of conflicting interests among agencies, many businesses were given trial periods during which assessments were conducted before their permanent licenses were issued.
"Though we try to link business' permits with environmental impact assessments, conflicts of interest among various agencies loosen the control, especially when there are no sanctions for not conducting the assessment," Rusdian said.
According to Rusdian, three reasons caused the ineffectiveness of environmental impact assessments. They included different perceptions on the importance of assessments, the lengthy administrative process involved in the assessments and the methodologies of the assessments.
"The government considers it a regulation, while businesses consider it an additional burden which wastes time and money, so they avoid it altogether," Rusdian explained.
The center for environmental law is helping the government draft new bills.
"New regulations should be drafted in line with economic deregulation," Achmad said. (14)