House urged to drop new forestry bill

House urged to drop new forestry bill

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) urged
the House of Representatives (DPR) on Friday to drop the forestry
bill which was believed to continue exploitation of natural
resources if enacted.

Walhi chairwoman Emmy Hafild said the bill was substantially
similar to the 1967 Law on Forestry Management, which treated
forests as natural resources that should be exploited.

"Damage to our forests across the country will worsen if the
bill is passed into law," she told The Jakarta Post Friday.

Emmy said the bill, which was slated for deliberation by the
House some time in mid-August, had yet to stipulate the public's
ownership on forests, their participation in forest
rehabilitation and nongovernmental organizations'(NGOs)
participation in forest conservation.

"The law should recognize indigenous peoples' ownership of
forests where they are living. They have owned the forests long
before the Indonesian state was established," she said, adding
that ownership should be not divided only between the state and
concessionaires, but should also include the tribes living inside
and near the forests.

Yanto, a member of House Commission III for forestry and
agriculture, concurred and said that his Golkar Party faction was
coordinating with others for a major revision to the bill in
compliance with input and new ideas from third parties concerned
with forest conservation in the country.

"We want the bill to include clauses stipulating that
industrial forests for timber production, protected forests and
national parks should not be converted into other functions,"
Yanto said, citing many forests in Sumatra, Kalimantan and
Sulawesi were converted into oil palm plantations.

He said that the bill should also limit the number of forest
concessions given to timber corporations to avoid any further
damage.

"The new government should be stricter in issuing the forest
concession rights to prevent damage to forests from worsening,"
he said, while adding that a major part of forests in Kalimantan
and Sumatra were deforested due to excessive exploitation and
fires over the last decade.

He said forest management should comply with the law on fiscal
balance, which gives authority to the local administration along
with their legislatures, to manage their own natural resources,
including forests.

Meanwhile, Emmy suggested that the House should also initiate
the deliberation of a "major" bill on natural resources to avoid
sectoral egoism in law making, as well as to protect the whole
ecosystem.

"It is quite strange that each part of natural resources has
its own law, while the laws on spatial zoning, environment,
plantation, forestry and marine resources have been established
without coordination among the related parties," she said.

She said that the deliberation of the forestry bill should
wait until the establishment of the 1999-2004 DPR, if the current
House fails to enact the major law on national resources. (rms)