How to deal with environmental rift?

JAKARTA (JP): Non-governmental organizations should try to work closer with the government in helping to settle environmental disputes, the deputy of the Environmental Impact Management Agency says.

"There has been increasing distrust between the government and non-governmental organizations in the last few years," Nabiel Makarim said yesterday at a discussion on out-of-court settlement of environmental disputes.

"Non-governmental organizations should realize that, especially at the regional level, the administration is the only authority."

"Currently, both parties have created walls," he said.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) say the regional administration does not care about environmental matters, and the bureaucracy says the NGOs always put them in the wrong, he noted.

Nabiel told Asian and American participants of an environmental resolution program that NGOs are actually vital to out-of-court settlements.

"The only way to make conflicting parties equal in negotiations is to have an NGO mediate, particularly if the parties consist of a community and a corporation," he said.

However, with the current situation of distrust, Nabiel said mediation is very difficult.

"We hope to create trust by showing that mediation works, but this needs more publication of success stories," he said, regretting that the media only highlights "exceptional" failures.

The discussion, organized by the Asia Foundation and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, was the last part of a one-month program. Twenty Asian participants took part in an internship on "alternative dispute resolution" in the United States for three weeks. The last week was spent in Indonesia for exposure to the experience here in settling environment-related cases.

This included a visit to Dukuh Tapak in Semarang, Central Java, where an out-of-court settlement in 1992 succeeded in resolving a conflict between residents and a number of factories.

The center's executive director, Mas Achmad Santosa, said earlier that one of the problems with legal settlement of environmental disputes is the lack of clout of the Office of the State Minister of Environment, which only coordinates implementation of government policies.

"It is the other ministries like the ministries of industry and mines which have the power," he said.

However, environment law expert Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri said yesterday that if the Office of State Minister of Environment becomes a ministry with a portfolio, "no one will listen to it."

Koesnadi and a former judge of the State Administrative Court, Paulus E. Lotulung, said there should be amendments to the 1982 Law regarding the need for material evidence of environmental harm for one to be able to file a lawsuit.

"The law should also provide the possibility of legal action to prevent pollution," Lotulung said.

Since the environment law became effective in 1982, Santosa said, less than 20 cases have been settled in court.

He said that out-of-court settlements are also better because of the long-term nature of an environmental solution.

"Environmental cases are not just a matter of losing and winning, there is also the obligation of complying with environmental standards," he said.

"However, there is no incentive for conflicting parties to negotiate due to the low level of enforcement of the environment law," Santosa said.

He also said there is low awareness on the part of the bureaucracy on the need for the presence of a neutral party.

Participants from China, South Korea and Malaysia also said out-of-court settlements were preferred in their countries due mainly to cultural factors.

A participant from the United States said that 95 percent of cases are usually settled out of court there.

The preference for out-of-court settlements in the U.S. is because environment-related cases are low on the priority of courts compared to criminal cases, Deborah Dalton of the Environmental Protection Agency, said.

"Litigation also moves conflicting parties as far apart as possible," she said. Cooperation, she added, is actually needed to implement a court decision regarding steps to correct environmental damage. (anr)