Environmentalists oppose scrapping of Bapedal

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's policy to scrap the Environmental Impact Control Agency (Bapedal) and to fuse its functions into the Office of the State Ministry for Environment met strong opposition from environmentalists on Wednesday.

A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wrote to President Megawati Soekarnoputri requesting her to annul presidential decrees No. 2/2002 and No. 4/2002. The NGOs doubt the policy will fail to empower the ministry as the government hopes.

They believe the state ministry deals only with policy not practicalities and therefore is not equipped to deal with Bapedal's functions as the supervisor and law-enforcement body.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) chairwoman Emmy Hafild said that the state ministry only had limited functions which only included the authority to formulate national guidelines and to coordinate subordinate bodies.

"The power to issue permits, to make legally-binding regulations and opinions, to control and to carry out investigations on environmental offenses will be gone after Bapedal is scrapped," she said in a discussion on the forum's environmental outlook for 2002.

Emmy was supported by other NGO activists in a joint media conference held after the discussion. They insisted that the presidential decrees be canceled.

They said that Bapedal, although it has yet to reach its ideals, had made significant contributions to the enforcement of environmental laws in the regions, especially in dealing with forest fires and pollution.

They asked Megawati to issue a presidential decree that allowed the environment minister to also head Bapedal to allow the agency to retain its powers.

The NGOs also urged the president to order State Minister for Environment Nabiel Makarim to make a comprehensive analysis on how to empower his office.

In his defense, Nabiel argued that the fusion would not weaken its office but instead would give it both coordinating and implementing functions -- something which cannot be found in other state ministries.

Nabiel told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the "state minister office plus" was an innovative policy of the government which is in line with the regional autonomy era.

"There will be similar control agencies in the regions that will take the authority and functions of Bapedal to uphold the environmental laws under the office's coordination," he said.