Environmental troubles to grow, Sarwono says

Environmental troubles to grow, Sarwono says

PEKANBARU, Riau (JP): Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja has warned the community of even greater environmental risks accompanying the acceleration of development in the next 25-year period.

Speaking at the opening of the provincial office of the Environmental Impact Management Agency here yesterday, Sarwono said Indonesia is facing real environmental threats.

"We are going to face very real challenges in the future, coming from the contamination of water, air and land, in addition to the increased risks of toxic waste to people's lives," he said.

Sarwono, who is also the chairman of the central office of the agency, said that with the officially-set economic growth target of 7 percent per year for the next 25 years, the volume of development will also grow. "This will certainly be accompanied by greater environmental risks," he said.

The condition demands that the government and the community in general seriously improve the management of natural resources, he said. "This also means the need to stop mistreating our natural resources, an old habit ingrained in the lives of officials, the community in general and businesspeople," he said.

Sarwono is also in town to open a seminar on environmental management which will be addressed by experts such as Adam Ibrahim and Nabil Makarim, both from the central office of the agency.

In another part of his speech, Sarwono said the agency is currently paying more attention to managing industrial waste, through programs such as the Clean River Program and the Business Performance Rating which evaluates factories' waste water.

Volume

Follow-up studies in the programs showed that industry-related pollution has declined in several rivers, while the volume of domestic waste has increased in a number of densely populated areas, Sarwono said. He did not specify or give statistics.

"We expect industrial waste to increase in areas which have not been targeted by the Clean River Program, while it is precisely in those areas that more industries will grow in the near future," he said.

Sarwono recently announced findings of the agency's study into waste discharged by more than 200 companies in the country. The companies were rated in terms of their performance: gold for companies with zero pollution, followed by green, blue, red, and black for the worst polluters.

None of the companies surveyed received the gold rating.

Sarwono named all five that were rated black but refrained from naming all the 115 that were rated red, a category reserved for companies which, despite taking steps to control its waste water, failed to even reach the minimum standards of liquid waste which may be discharged into rivers.

The agency's just-opened office in Pekanbaru is responsible for environmental management in the provinces of Jambi, Riau, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Aceh, Bengkulu, Lampung and South Sumatra. (31/swe)