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)