Six NGOs question status of national parks

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)