NGOs prepare new conservation plans
NGOs prepare new conservation plans
SERPONG, West Java (JP): Community-based organizations in
Southeast Asia are meeting in Serpong to prepare plans of action
to strengthen environmental conservation in the interest of
traditional communities.
This is the first regional-level effort to implement the 1992
Convention of Biodiversity, and, more specifically, to create
recognition of the need for knowledge sharing between traditional
communities and outside parties.
The plans of action were formulated at the three-day regional
workshop on community-based conservation of biological diversity
which began on Thursday. Participants discussed several problems
concerning community-based conservation including how to define
equal sharing of resources.
"The ideas in the Convention are still too vague," Hamdallah
Zedan, coordinator of biodiversity and biotechnology of the
United Nations Environmental Program, said yesterday.
"At the very least we must first reach an agreement on the
recognition of a community's right to its resources," Zedan said.
"After that we can begin to talk of forms of appropriate
compensation for a community."
The Convention on Biodiversity was signed by governments
participating in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
where Indonesia was a participant.
According to the workshop's organizers, proposed plans of
action centered around documenting traditional knowledge and
customs of sustainable practices, the inclusion of this knowledge
into national regulations and institutions, and the empowerment
of communities.
Participants acknowledged that the interests of traditional
communities often conflict with those of environmental
conservation, and that daily needs often force communities to
resort to practices which are detrimental to the environment.
"Campaigning awareness of sustainable practices only works
with the provision of viable alternatives that do not hurt a
community's livelihood," said Chris Majors of the Washington-
based Conservation International who works with the Sama
Foundation in Southeast Sulawesi in preserving its coral reefs.
On empowering communities, participants from Thailand,
Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries discussed the role
of informal leaders, the possibility of abuses of power,
corruption at all levels of government and the need of
decentralization.
Emil Salim, the chairman of the Kehati Foundation which is
hosting the workshop, said the Indonesian government is already
decentralizing its administration, not only between central and
regional bureaucracies, but also in managing local projects.
He cited the transfer of the Leuser National Park to a
foundation, as an example. The foundation aims to rehabilitate
Mt. Leuser in Aceh, an area whose flora and fauna population have
been endangered by environmental degradation.
Chee Yoke Ling, a Malaysian activist from the Hong Kong-based
Third World Network, said another urgent matter for the workshop
would be to create a regional code of conduct to monitor
practices of corporations.
Such action is needed to prevent further environmental
destruction by Southeast Asian companies throughout the Southeast
Asian countries in which they operate.
"Our governments voiced a strong stand at the Earth Summit
against practices of private sectors in the North that destroy
our resources; our companies should not repeat this," she said,
citing the practices of a Malaysian logging company in Papua New
Guinea.
Setijati D. Sastrapradja of Kehati said the plans of action
will be proposed to respective governments and will be partially
funded by the Global Environmental Fund. The Fund was set up to
implement the Convention.
The results of the workshop will be reported to a team in
charge of science and technology, as well as to other teams
working on the Convention, which meets in Paris next month. (anr)