Environmentalists oppose plan to dissolve Bapedal
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Environmentalists strongly rejected on Thursday the government's plan to dissolve the Environmental Impact Control Agency (Bapedal) and merge it with the Office of the State Minister of the Environment.
Asserting that the plan will bring efforts to protect the environment back to square one, representatives of environmental organizations voiced their objections to the plan to State Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim.
The protest was launched on Thursday evening after receiving leaked information that President Megawati Soekarnoputri is likely to issue a presidential decree on the dissolution of Bapedal on Saturday.
They also plan to send a letter to the President and seek support from the House of Representatives on Friday to drop the issuance of the presidential decree.
It was Nabiel himself who asked the President to merge the agency into his office as the new administration does not allow Cabinet members to embrace twin positions both as a minister and as a head of a subordinate agency, a condition which was common in the past regime.
Law No. 23/1997 on environmental management which regulates the existence of Bapedal outlines it as a tool of the Office of the State Minister for Environment which functions to monitor and control the impact of development on the environment.
Bapedal has the regulatory power which gives the real authority to the powerless state minister.
The position of state ministers was only established during former president Soeharto's administration. Their authority was limited to coordinating and formulating national policy.
The Indonesia Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) cofounder Mas Achmad Santosa said that Nabiel did not realize that the fusion would not empower the office of the state minister, but instead weaken his position as the guardian of the environment.
"Nabiel once told me that if he was not appointed head of Bapedal then he will not have real authority. That was his reason for merging the agency with his office," Santosa told The Jakarta Post.
Chairwoman of the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), Emmy Hafild, said that it was regrettable that the President had agreed to dissolve Bapedal, instead of empowering the Office of the State Minister for Environment by upgrading it into a ministry.
She told the Post that Nabiel did not have any option but the merger because "this regime doesn't care about the environmental affairs".
"Without a powerful ministry how can the government bring environmental issues to the mainstream?," she asked.
Santosa and Emmy asserted that a ministry which supervises natural resources, environment and landscape, would be in compliance with the People's Consultative Assembly Decree No. 9/2001 on Agrarian Reform and Natural Resources Management and Law No. 25/2000 on the National Development Program, which both stipulate the need for an empowered environmental institution.