Jakarta, Ekuatorial – Indonesia will be hosting world’s conference on lakes bearing hopes that it will encourage more attention and actions for the country’s own distraught resources, said a senior official on Thursday (4/3), in Jakarta.
The 16th World Lake Conference (WCL16) will be held on November 2016, in Bali under the cooperation of Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Ministry of Public Works and collaboration with International Lake Environmental Committee Foundation (ILEC).
WLC, initiated by ILEC, has been established since 1984, in Shiga, Japan. Its office is based in Japan. Up to date, WLC that has prominent countries as its parties, including Japan, China, Italy, Argentina, USA, Hungary, Denmark, Kenya, and India, held its conference for every two year.
“Being the host is not actually the only target but it shows that members of WCL are confident and trust that Indonesia is committed to save lakes, either regionally and globally,” said Arief Yuwono, deputy for environment damage control and climate change, ministry of environment and forestry, at a media briefing.
Yuwono said that the benefit might not be tangible but Indonesia has gained trust to enter world’s community and discuss scientific and political matters. “So, we can communicate and shared experiences which I consider to be priceless,” he said. “Second, we want to use this momentum to deal with the tipping point that we have lots of issues [on lakes] but we cannot solve them by ourselves. We have limited resources.”
Nevertheless, he went on citing that Indonesia had established ‘Lake Ecosystems Rescue Movements’ or known locally as GERMADAN for 15 priority lakes in the country since 2009. In 2015, Gerandam was adopted to the National Mid Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2015-19. “It means that this movement should continue and will continue as plan,” he said. “There will also be funding allocation [to support the movement].
Heri Harjono of Asia Pacific Center for Ecohydrology (APCE) at LIPI, said that WLC16 has time importance for Indonesia as the country has been endowed with 840 lakes with different characteristic. “Lake is part of the ecosystem. If we keep doing nothing, then slowly it [lake] can turn into disaster,” said Harjono who has been participating in the previous conference held in Perugia, Italy. “We are being appreciated for our knowledge about lake. So, it must happens now.”
Furthermore, he underlined that hosting the conference would encourage people, either government, scientists and public, to appreciate more researches on lakes. “We don’t want to have study about lakes in Singapore. That would be too painful to bear,” he said adding that Singapore had already set up center on volcanoes. “If they want to study about lake, then they should go to Indonesia. So, it’s very important to protect and manage these lakes.” Fidelis E. Satriastanti.
