Sarwono ready to work with responsible NGOs

By Prapti Widinugraheni

BANDA, Maluku: State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja challenges non-governmental organizations to speak out on what they believe is true, but with accurate data.

NGOs should improve proficiency in their fields or stop their activist activities, he said when opening a workshop on marine conservation here Tuesday.

"If you (NGO activists) are afraid to take the challenge, be a businessman instead and you can frighten people," Sarwono said in the workshop sponsored by UNESCO in cooperation with the Warisan Budaya Banda Foundation, Laut Lestari Indonesia and Nature Conservancy International.

He did not, however, suggest that NGOs took a confrontational approach when defending the people but he recommended that they enhance cooperation with the government.

Local environmental NGOs have often been at odds with the government because of their critical views of some state policies.

In the latest case, several NGOs in various fields have filed law suits against President Soeharto for issuing a decree that allowed for the diversion of Rp 400 billion (US$187 million) in reforestation funds to the state-own aviation industry, IPTN.

Sarwono acknowledged that NGOs were needed to help the government handle areas which it could not manage or reach.

"It's not true that if the government is clean, everything in the system will run effectively as many people imagine. The problem is that the government cannot cope with all the 180 million population without help from the people," he said.

NGOs, he added, were needed as the government's partners to share the burden in development.

In support of Sarwono's opinion on the need for community participation in conservation was an argument from Graham F. Usher of the Natural Resources Management Project which is overseen by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Livelihood

Usher said that the danger in the centralized decision-making process, as commonly practiced in Indonesia, was that the results were not always appropriate for the local community. The local people do not feel responsible for the results because they are not involved, he added.

Usher in particular stressed the importance of community participation in the conservation of coral reefs, a source of livelihood for many local residents.

"Scientists and policy makers must consider those people who live off the reefs and protect them as well," he said in fluent Bahasa Indonesia.

The workshop opened on Monday by minister Sarwono was attended by about 30 scientists from more than 10 countries.

The participants assessed the general situation of coral reefs in eastern Indonesia, home to the greatest variety of species in the world. They also examined the healing capacity of the coral reefs.

Indonesia, two thirds of which is made up of seas, is rich in coral reefs which are vital to physical and biological processes in the sea and on land, especially along the coastlines.

Scientists have warned that the reefs have been rapidly dwindling over the past few years, largely due to pollution and over-exploitation.

Usher said that Indonesian students and scientists were in urgent need of reference books on reefs to help conserve natural resources.

"Indonesia and its high coral diversity should actually be the world's center for coral reef studies," he said.