Govt should heed 'lessons' from landslides, floods

Govt should heed 'lessons' from landslides, floods

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Landslides and floods, which frequently hit the country, should
be reason enough for the government to pay more attention to
environmental issues as those disasters are due to environmental
destruction including logging, legal or otherwise, said an
environmental expert.

Ridha Saleh of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment
(Walhi) said that if the government failed to pay serious
attention to environmental issues such as illegal logging or
illegal farming, the country's forests would be completely
destroyed within a very short time.

Since forests function to absorb groundwater that in turn
prevents floods and landslides, they play an important role in
the ecosystem.

"The natural environment in Indonesia has been so damaged due
to over-exploitation such as logging. Our government treats
natural resources as an object, not as a resource that can
protect and support human lives," Ridha told The Jakarta Post.

He added that the government has considered environmental
issues unimportant and has not listed them on its main agenda.

"The destruction of forests, through illegal logging or
conversion into farmland, has become a human rights violation
because it leads to natural disasters which ultimately destroy
human lives," Ridha said.

He mentioned as an example that in Java, 400,000 hectares of
land had been converted into housing projects, hence the land had
lost its original function to absorb water.

"I don't want to imagine what's going to happen to Indonesia
next if the government fails to prevent further damage to the
natural environment. Java island might be submerged in a few
years time," he said.

Data from Walhi shows that the degradation rate of Indonesian
forests has kept climbing from 1.5 million hectares per year in
the 1980s to 2.7 million per year in 1990s to 3.5 million
hectares per year currently.

A similar comment was made by Elfian Effendi from Greenomics,
a non-governmental organization (NGO) dealing with environmental
issues as well as economic issues.

Elfian said that the government had not realized that the
environment cost of felling trees outweighed the financial
benefits gained, whether in the case of illegal or legal logging.

He added that Indonesia's forests have been exploited for more
than 30 years and it might be the time to rest and wait around 10
years before the forests can renew themselves.

"The government should call on the businessmen to stop
exploiting our forests because there is no equilibrium between
the people and environment anymore," Elfian said.

"The decision might make those businessmen suffer huge
financial losses but the government should also think that it's
always the small people who suffer in natural disasters. Surely
sacrificing money is better than sacrificing human lives?" Elfian
said.