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Indonesia to put moratorium on foreign researches to protect its biodiversity

Jakarta, Ekuatorial – Tackling biological materials theft or bio-piracy, Indonesia will force a moratorium on research, said a senior official in Jakarta, on Tuesday (21/10).

Under Nagoya Protocol related to benefit sharing and traditional knowledge, signatories to the binding agreement such as Indonesia are made possible to limit access on their biodiversity richness.

“We [environment ministry] are cooperating with other ministries and institutions to protect Indonesia’s biodiversity from theft through moratorium. This moratorium is similar like forest moratorium [the 2011 ban on issuing new licenses on natural forests and peatlands] where there will be limitation on access for biodiversity for foreign countries,” said Arief Yuwono, the ministry’s deputy for environmental damage control and climate change.

Yuwono said that bio-piracy took in many forms in Indonesia.

“Lots of motives [for bio-piracy] camouflage as cooperation, joint research, scholarships, universities, tourism, commerce, among other things. We will try to look at Japan as an example for having more suitable and proper scheme [to fight bio-piracy],” said Yuwono.

The research moratorium will determine which areas, species, and genetic resources are available for foreign research or not.

“This moratorium will be similar to forest moratorium. We will put a moratorium on ecosystem, species, genetic resources. We don’t have any specific moratorium list yet but we will decide them from their vulnerability, whether they’re endangered species or hard to breed,” said Enny Sudarmonowati, deputy for Biodiversity at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

Yuwono added that they will be working with LIPI, marine and maritime ministry, forestry ministry, agricultural ministry to held a workshop to develop the moratorium scheme and its action plan.

“This workshop will help up mapping motives of bio-piracy in the field, to determine moratorium areas, and its action,” he said adding that the ministry has been inventorying the country’s genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

Furthermore, he said that the ministry was working along with universities in Papua province to develop a joint website.

“We met with researchers from Cendrawasih Unversity [in Jayapura], Musamus University [in Merauke],[State University of] Papua [in Manokwari], and [Saint Paul] Polytechnic Sorong and agreed on developing a website easy to access for researchers and can prevent bio-piracy,” he said.

The aim, he said was for researches from other countries were able to report to certain institution. In addition, to encourage researchers to be more professional, understand international issues, and can conduct inventory on Indonesia’s genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

“Even though they’re foreign researchers, they would have to report themselves to the related institution,” he said. “[The website] also aim to improve the substance [of their researchers].

Meanwhile, Sudarmonowati said that Indonesia had been ‘robbed’ when it comes to deep-sea researches because it would require expensive equipments and mostly foreign researchers have better funding that Indonesia’s researchers.

“LIPI is concentrating and developing deep-sea centre research because we have much potential undiscovered. Don’t let foreigners get to know [these potentials] before we do,” she said firmly.

Yuwono said that moratorium will not only be limited in central government but also implemented in regional levels. “We will encourage universities and local governments as they will be the filter for permits and monitoring of foreign research in their areas,” he said. Januar Hakam.

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