Environmentalists oppose plan to dissolve Bapedal

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.