Environmentalists lament no action against polluters

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): Environmentalists yesterday lauded the government for naming the domestic companies that pollute rivers, but lamented the lack of follow-up legal action.

Emmy Hafild of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), Mas Achmad Santosa of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, and Suwiryo Ismail of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation all expressed their disappointment that no strong action had been taken against companies polluting the rivers.

"The lack of legal action is a Bapedal weakness," one of the activists said, referring to the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal), the government's environmental watchdog, which announced on Wednesday the names of domestic companies causing river pollution.

Companies were rated either "gold", "green", "blue", "red" or "black" in descending order, for their efforts toward protecting the environment. Out of the 120 companies evaluated, only one company was awarded a "green", none a "gold", six were "black- listed", 80 were categorized "red", and the remaining 33 were given a "blue" rating.

"It is the government's responsibility, not the community's, to take legal action against those companies," Emmy told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

The companies, especially the worst offenders who were rated "black," should be taken to court. "Social punishment is not enough," she said.

"The companies do not care about the environment or the local communities who suffer from the pollution. They only care about making profits, they should be ordered to make amends and to restore the damaged environment," said Emmy.

State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, who chairs Bapedal, has said the ratings cannot be used as a legal weapon for suing environmental polluters. Instead, the ratings are to inform people affected by pollution and help them to initiate legal action against the offenders.

Emmy acknowledged the agency's limitations but suggested that the limitations be addressed by giving the agency the authority to pursue legal action.

Mas Achmad Santosa and Suwiryo called on the agency to investigate options for initiating legal action against the companies.

"The agencies homework will be to discover ways of increasing its powers to take legal action," Achmad told the Post.

Suwiryo said the absence of legal action against the companies demonstrated a lack of coordination, a lack of political will from the government and the inadequacies of the legal system in handling environmental problems.

He criticized the agency for employing evaluation processes which failed to involve the communities whose lives were most affected by pollution.