Work harder on environment, Soeharto says

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia still needs to work hard at preserving and strengthening the environment despite encouraging results on this front, President Soeharto said.

Addressing a national coordination meeting on managing the environment yesterday, Soeharto said Indonesia has made significant progress in the 17 years since the appointment of a minister to deal specifically with environmental issues.

Soeharto said the public's perception and awareness of the need to preserve the environment have expanded. The diversity and complexity of the problems have also become clearer, he said.

There is greater awareness for better coordination and Indonesia has established laws and regulations and set up various institutions to deal with environmental problems.

"But our tasks are still immense and heavy," he said. "The environmental degradation of several decades requires time and hard work to mend."

The meeting is the first of its kind since the 1978 establishment of the Office of the State Minister on Environment, now headed by Sarwono Kusumaatmadja.

As well as environmental management, the three-day meeting will review the programs on sustainable development, a concept developed for the current government's Second Long Term Development Program which spans 25 years and began last April.

"I hope this meeting will agree on policies and strategies on environmental management during the Second Long Term Development Program and integrate sustainable development policies with an environmental outlook," Soeharto said.

Soeharto said 17 years was hardly adequate to undo some of the environmental damages created over the previous decades.

Many of the present environmental problems have their roots in the previous generations, and similarly, he reminded the participants, many of the activities carried out today will have their impact on the environment in the future.

Soeharto said Indonesia already has the legal basis for environmental management with the Environmental Law in 1982.

What the nation needs now is steps to enforce the law, and for this Soeharto proposed 10 steps.

They include conserving the environment, enhancing environmental supporting capacity, improving the quality of the environment, enhancing protection of fauna and flora being exploited for commercial use, improving coordination between human resources, natural resources and man-made resources.

The other measures are optimizing use of space, reducing the risk of environmental destruction and pollution, encouraging public participation, strengthening environmental information and economics, and using or developing science and technology for the management and protection of the environment.

Funds

The ministers addressing the conference were State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, State Minister for National Development Planning/Chairman of the National Development Planning Board Ginanjar Kartasasmita, Minister of Home Affairs Yogie S. Memet, Minister of Defense and Security Gen. Edi Sudradjat, Coordinating Minister for Industry and Trade Hartarto and Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman.

According to Ginanjar, environmental problems emerged as people were not really ready to face the rapid economic growth, which resulted in the exploitation of natural resources.

As far as the funds were concerned, it was not difficult to deal with the case, he said. For the environment management, the government allocated Rp 357 billion (US$172 million) for the 1994/1995 fiscal year, or Rp 2.6 trillion for the sixth Five-year Development Plan (Repelita VI), which started this year.

"What is important is how to coordinate the allocation and use of the funds," he said.

To prevent any misappropriation of the funds, the government required clear targets of proposed projects under the so-called Sarlita concept, Ginanjar said.

Sarwono told reporters that out of the Rp 357 billion, only Rp 8 billion was managed by his office and the Environmental Impact Management Agency.

"The rest of the funds are uncontrolled... This is what we can't tolerate," he said.

He underlined Ginanjar's statement on the importance of coordination on the use of the funds, saying he did not require more money for his office.

Sarwono said that one of the main obstacles in environmental management is the lack of coordination among involved government institutions -- both in the central and regional levels, the private business sector and the public.(emb/sim)