Six NGOs question status of national parks

JAKARTA (JP): Six international non-governmental organizations have sent a letter to the Ministry of Forestry and Ministry of Mines and Energy asking about the status of 20 Indonesian national parks which they say are unprotected from commercial mining exploration.

Paul Jepson, BirdLife Indonesia's Coordinator, said yesterday that the letter was sent to urge the government to clarify the legal status of the national parks.

"The law designed to protect the parks from mineral and mining exploration has become unclear, if not confusing," he told The Jakarta Post.

Besides BirdLife, the letter's signatories are the World Wide Fund for Nature, Wetlands International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International.

"The parks' legal status is not strong enough (to protect them), and we would appreciate clarification from the government," Jepson said.

He said that within the next two or three years, the law would no longer be able to protect the 20 conservation areas from commercial interests.

The existing regulations on conservation are based on Law No. 5/1990 on the conservation of the living resources and their ecosystems.

Article 31 of the law stipulates that people are prohibited from doing anything which is inconsistent with the function of the zones of National Parks, Grand Forest Parks, and Natural Recreation Parks.

The law also stipulates that violators are subject to five years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rp 100 million (US$41,600).

Sulaiman N. Sembiring, head of the Department of Avocation Cases of the Indonesian Center of Environment Law, told the Post that the ambiguity of the law arose from a 1989 joint decree issued by the Ministry of Forestry and the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

"The decree says that commercial exploration in wildlife sanctuaries and nature reservations is only allowed with appropriate permits from the two ministries."

Sembiring said that the decision also regulates that protected areas which are being explored at the time they are proposed to become a National Park are exempted from the law.

"It would mean that if there were an exploration in progress in a wildlife sanctuary or nature reservation, the project could continue even after the place had been turned into a national park."

He said that since the joint decision came into effect private companies claimed that they also had a legal right to explore protected areas.

Agus Purnomo, Country Representative of the World Wide Fund for Nature, expressed concern that the law was insufficient to defend the boundaries of the protected areas from mining or other commercial interests.

Twelve of the country's 31 parks have on-site management units. (12)