Government issues ruling to control land degradation

Government issues ruling to control land degradation

JAKARTA (JP): The government has issued a regulation to
control land damage and is expected to approve a related one
within two weeks, a senior official said on Monday.

The State Ministry of the Environment's assistant deputy for
environmental law development, Barlin Abdulrahman, told reporters
that Government Regulation No. 150/2000, which was endorsed by
the President on Dec. 23 last year, deals with the effort to
control the degradation of land allocated for manufacturing
plants.

Barlin said the government ruling was drafted based on the
fact that Indonesia was an agricultural country with a high level
of farming, plantation and forestry activities.

"But it (development) has resulted in damage which is
increasing every year," he said.

The second regulation was aimed at controlling land
degradation due to forest and brush fires, according to Barlin.

"We're still waiting for the President's approval of the draft
regulation, which will hopefully take place in two weeks," he
said.

Separately, the Ministry's Director of Land, Forest and
Watercourse Degradation Control Bambang Setyabudi said farmers'
activities have changed the land's physical and biological
characteristics.

"It's usually caused by overexploitation of land or a farming
system which ignores soil conservation," he told The Jakarta Post
over the phone.

Citing an example, he said the terrace farming system should
be applied in the hilly Puncak resort area in West Java due to
the sloping nature of the land.

"In the absence of such a system, the quality of the soil
there has declined over the years," he added.

According to Bambang, based on the regulation, the Ministry
will set the standards and criteria for assessing land
degradation.

"But the implementation of the regulation is fully under the
regional government's authority. They will formulate the programs
to avoid, to overcome and to control land degradation, besides
drawing up inventories of the areas that are badly degraded or
more prone to degradation," he said.

The regulation, Bambang added, also obliged a local government
to announce the condition and status of degraded land to the
public without having to wait for any request to do so.

Bambang underlined the urgency of endorsing the second draft
regulation.

Forest Resources Assessment (FAO) has reported that an
estimated of 1.2 million hectares of Indonesian forest was felled
annually from 1981 to 1990, or eight percent of the total 15.4
million hectares of world forest lost every year.

The FAO also estimated in 1999 that around two million
hectares of Indonesian forests were burned in 1997, and more
areas were burned in 1998.

According to Bambang, the regulation focused on the effort to
prevent fires as they were very difficult to control and
extinguish once they had started.

He said the draft suggested that land clearing by burning be
permitted. "It's a tradition and it's hard to ban it," he said.

The draft also stipulated that concession holders would not be
able to avoid their responsibilities if there were forest/brush
fires within their areas.

"The only obstacle is how to obtain evidence of a concession
holder's involvement in the fire. Therefore we will coordinate
with experts and other departments in the use of technology,"
Bambang said.

Earlier on Monday, Minister Sonny Keraf said his office had
submitted complaints against five companies to the Attorney
General's office a couple of months ago.

"They were taken over by the Coordinating Ministry for the
Economy last month. So we can only wait now. We can only follow
and obey the procedures," he said. (hdn)