The country's rich natural resources endangered

The country's rich natural resources endangered

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A high ranking official with the (then) Trade and Industry
Ministry was clearly puzzled when a journalist asked for his
comment about a number of companies accused of polluting a river
in West Java.

Seconds later, he laughed and asked the journalist to solicit
comments from the State Minister for the Environment instead.

"I work for the Trade and Industry Ministry, not the KLH," he
said, referring to the State Ministry of the Environment.

The response clearly reflects the mind-set of most decision
makers here -- that environmental issues are exclusive; separate
from issues of trade or industry.

The Chairman of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI),
Longgena Ginting, says decision makers are ignorant of the fact
that environmental issues always link to other aspects of life.

"Decision makers here always associate environmental issues
with floods, droughts, landslides, pollution and waste," says
Longgena, complaining that they fail to understand the core of
environmentalism -- that nature has its limits.

The nation's economic policies are often considered
exploitative from the environmental perspective. This year
Indonesia saw two major environmental cases that highlighted this
tendency.

The first was the enactment of the water resources law in
February, and the second the issuance of a presidential decree on
mining, followed by a government regulation in lieu of law that
allows 13 mining companies to resume open-pit mining operations
in protected forests.

Speculation has been rife among activists and experts that the
water resources law was enacted in order to allow privatization
of the water sector, as has been sought by certain international
water companies.

The regulation on open-pit mining seems to have been issued to
avoid possible lawsuits by mining companies in arbitration
courts. The 13 mining companies are among 22 mining firms that
had sought to resume operations in protected forests. They had
previously received contracts from the government years before
the Forestry Law was introduced and the government designated
concession areas as protected forest.

Environmental activists, however, contend that environmental
destruction caused by open-pit mining outweighs any economic
gains from mining operations.

The 2003 state of the environment report, which outlines the
condition of the country's environment, reveals that supply of
water in 2003 reached 483.1 billion cubic meters while demand was
66.4 billion cubic meters during the dry season.

By 2020, it is projected that demand for water will reach 75.5
billion cubic meters while supply will remain static at 483.1
billion cubic meters.

"It appears that Indonesia plenty of water but there is a
deficit in Java and Bali, which have only 25.3 billion cubic
meters of water to meet a demand of 38.1 billion cubic meters,"
it says. The combined population of Java and Bali makes up around
60 percent of the country's more than 220 million people.

The reduction of forest area in Java -- currently only 15
percent of the island's 12 million hectares -- has been blamed as
the major cause of its water deficit of 32 billion cubic meters a
year since 1995. Java will very likely suffer a water deficit of
134 billion cubic meters per year by 2010.

The report also warns that the water resources continue to
decline due to excessive water pollution, either by industry,
households or agriculture, while population continues to grow.

"People mistakenly consider the amount of water in the world
to be constant due to the hydrology cycle. In fact, the quality
of water continues to decrease so that an increasing proportion
of it cannot be consumed," the report said.

Land is the most important store area for water during the
rainy season. "Unfortunately, forests and water catchment areas
have been turned into housing estates, or used for industry or
agriculture," it says.

The report claims that nearly 7,000 large-scale industries,
some 15,000 small to medium enterprises, and about 240,000
household industries are contributing to the pollution of the
nation's air and water.

The state of the environment report also reveals that the
condition of forests in the country has entered a critical stage
due to legal and illegal logging, forest fires, legal and illegal
mining in forests, as well as the conversion of forests into
housing estates or plantations.

The Ministry of Forestry's MS Kaban expressed hope for a
revival of the forestry industry in a bid to turn it into a
revenue generator for the nation. His remarks sparked protests
from environmental activists.

Data from the report reveals that some 43 million hectares of
the nation's 120 million hectares of forests have been damaged.
Every year, an additional 2 million hectares of forest are
damaged.

The World Bank has predicted that all lowland forests in
Sumatra will have disappeared by next year, and in Kalimantan by
2010.

Water and forests are amongst the most important elements of
the environment, and this is particularly critical for Indonesia
because of its very large population.

The government currently gets US$379.81 million in taxes and
non-tax revenues annually from the 13 mining companies, which
employ 47,269 workers. They also get millions of dollars more
from water and logging business.

But, in the words of former environment minister Emil Salim,
the government cannot keep implementing "live for today"
policies.

Emil is a staunch advocate of sustainable development.

The money the government must spend to deal with problems
generated by environment destruction may well exceed the profits
of natural resources exploitation.

Severe drought, caused by, among other things, deforestation,
causes crop failure to nearly 300,000 hectares of some 10 million
hectares of rice fields.

Whilst droughts did not create a domestic rice supply problem
-- Indonesia simply imported more rice -- it did impoverish
millions of farmers, experts said.

The crop failure of 300,000 hectares could potentially put
some 1.2 million families into poverty.

Last year, the government allocated Rp 1.2 trillion for the
reforestation of some 3 million hectares of damaged forests
throughout the country.

"If we keep up these live for today policies, then the
nation's future generations will potentially inherit conflict."
Emil warned.