Walhi to decide on MPR seat next week
Walhi to decide on MPR seat next week
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) is
yet to decide whether or not to accept a seat in the People's
Consultative Assembly (MPR) as one of the interest group
representatives, who will play an important role in the coming
presidential election.
"The members will decide whether or not to accept the MPR seat
in a meeting next week," Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a Walhi
executive, said in a media briefing on Friday, referring to the
forum's seventh congress planned for Aug. 22 to Aug. 27 in the
South Kalimantan capital of Banjarmasin.
As an organization with a network of more than 400 NGOs, Walhi
is eligible to send a representative to the MPR. The 700-member
body has a total of 65 representatives from various interest
groups including artists and scholars.
Nursyahbani said the upcoming meeting will also decide whether
Walhi will remain a network of NGOs like it is now or transform
itself into a mass-based organization.
She said that as a mass-based organization, Walhi would have
more support from the common people and it would be easier for
Walhi to mobilize people in addressing environmental issues.
Walhi will also elect a new leader in the meeting. Its current
leader, Emmy Hafild, will contest for reelection along with other
candidates including Arimbi Heroepoetri, Ramadhana Lubis, Bambang
Widjayanto and Zohra A. Baso.
Arimbi Heroepoetri, currently deputy director of Walhi, said
the government has shown little interest in overcoming
environmental issues.
She said the government often adopts probusiness policies,
which aggravate environmental degradation. She cited as examples
the misappropriation of Rp 400 billion of forest rehabilitation
funds for the national airplane maker IPTN and for the
development of the failed one-million hectare peat-soil
plantation in Central Kalimantan.
She said that what has happened so far is that the government
has sold out the land and the natural resources to business
interests, causing conflicts between capitalist interests and the
people's interests.
Arimbi said people have a traditional wisdom of sustainable
use of natural resources, while the government exploits the
resources for profit and ignores the often disastrous
environmental consequences.
Walhi wants to empower the people by nurturing a mass-based
organization and developing its human resources, she said. (06)