RI is ready to respond to environmental charges

RI is ready to respond to environmental charges

JAKARTA (JP): Alarmed by international criticism of the
country's environmental record, the Indonesian delegation for the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings will be armed
with an information package on environmental management.

"We are preparing an information package, which is expected to
be useful for the Indonesian delegation," State Minister of
Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said yesterday.

Sarwono said that there was not much global linking of the
field of environment to inter-government relations in general.

"I don't see any problem on the macro level," he said.

He pointed out that it was consumers which often linked the
environment with economic or trade relations.

The criticism of the management of the forests in Indonesia,
for example, did not come from foreign governments, but from
buyers, Sarwono said.

Indonesian business circles will have to comply with the
market pressures for more environmentally-friendly products
sooner or later, otherwise they will suffer, the minister added.

"Let the market control the corporations' environmental
policy," he said.

Sarwono said the market's strong demand for environmentally-
friendly products will improve the environmental awareness of
business people in any field, including in banking.

He called on bankers to include environmental aspects in their
considerations for loan approvals. He said that this was
voluntary. "I don't have any ambition to interfere in banking
deregulation," he said.

Earlier yesterday, the American Express Foundation, on behalf
of the American Express Bank, presented a grant of US$25,000 to
Sarwono's office.

The grant will fund the first round of South-South Exchange, a
new environmental program established following talks between The
Nature Conservancy's president Dr. John Sawhill and President
Soeharto last year.

Three government officials are scheduled to visit the group's
headquarters in Washington D.C., to learn about international
conservation skills training programs, and the Parks in Peril
Conservation Data Center in Panama, as well as Hawaii, the home
of a 13-year conservation program that manages a complex system
of rain forests, stream ecosystems and coastal dunes. (sim)