Environmentalists oppose scrapping of Bapedal
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.