People to have say in natural resource use

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The public will soon have a say in the exploitation of natural resources in their respective areas.

The draft of a bill on natural resources management, which the office of the state minister of the environment plans to submit to the House of Representatives (DPR) next month, requires government authorities to secure permission from local people before granting exploitation permits to mining companies.

"This is a positive development on the previous policy, where decisions on how to manage an area were always made unilaterally by the central government," said Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri, who headed a team in charge of drafting the natural resources management bill.

During the leadership of former president Soeharto, many forested areas were given over to big private companies without public consultation, a move that contributed to huge damage to the country's forests.

The bill also guarantees the rights of local tribes to manage their ancestral lands. Any decision to exploit natural resources at tribal land should not result in the tribes being uprooted from their land, Koesnadi said.

"The formulation of the draft is already stipulated under People's Consultative Assembly Decree No 9/2001. So,Pak Nabiel (state minister of the environment) has made a commitment to submitting the bill to the House next month," Koenadi said before a meeting to debate the draft bill.

Deputy state minister of the environment for policy and environmental institutions Hoetomo said on Friday that the bill should be approved by related ministries before submitting it to the House for deliberation.

The bill, according to Hoetomo, would function as the legal basis for carrying out sustainable development in the country.

So far, the country only has laws on specific resources, such as mining, forestry and others; therefore, conflicting articles between the laws are rampant.

Koesnadi said the bill would mainly contain sustainability principles to manage natural resources and would not prioritize one single sector.

"It will become a reference for other ministries to formulate law or policy. Existing laws must also be revised if they contain articles against the proposed bill," he said.

Meanwhile, Daud Silalahi, a member of the team drafting the bill, said it required the establishment of a council tasked with implementing the law.

"This body will set up a policy on natural resources management, recommend the policy to related ministries and monitor its implementation," he said.

The body could become an alternative institution to mediate on conflicting policies between ministries, whose final decision would be binding on all parties.

He said, for example, conflict between the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Forestry could be arbitrated by the council.

Hoetomo also gave an assurance that public hearings at which the bill would be debated would continue to help provide input to the House.

"This public debate will not be carried out by the House only. We will go to 13 regions where the bill will be debated with local stakeholders," he said.

Medan, Palembang, Pekanbaru (Sumatra island); Jakarta, Surabaya (Java); Mataram (Nusa Tenggara); Pontianak, Balikpapan (Kalimantan); Makassar, Gorontalo (Sulawesi); and Jayapura (Papua) will be among the cities to hold public hearings.

Those cities were selected as their provinces are rich in natural resources, and have a high population, with dynamic stakeholders.