Jakarta, Ekuatorial – Ahead of announcing his new cabinet, green activist on Thursday (23/10) urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to call off merging environment and forestry ministry into one institution.
On Thursday, President Jokowi requested to change names and merge several of his up-coming ministries to the House of Parliament (DPR), which include Public Works Ministry merge with Public Housing Ministry, Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry revert to being Tourism Ministry, Education and Culture Ministry merge with Research and Technology Ministry, Environment Ministry merge with Forestry Ministry, Manpower and Transmigration Ministry merge with Underdeveloped Regions Ministry, and Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare will be renamed into Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture.
“The request to merge environment and forestry ministries into one institution to DPR indicating that the president’s promise to strengthen institution in protecting and managing the environment had degraded,” said Abetnego Tarigan, executive director of Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi, in a short message.
Tarigan was citing the meeting held on May 12 between Walhi and then presidential candidate Jokowi discussing on environment issues.
“Walhi recommended for a stronger environment ministry by relating it with spatial planning, conservation, specific management, and of course firm law enforcement,” he said. “Meanwhile, forestry ministry would only be focusing on forest production, such as industrial forest plantation, social forestry, and logging. For tenure issues, it should be handled by agrarian ministry.”
Furthermore, he said that the merger would only eliminate environment ministry’s authority against forestry ministry’s policy.
“It would blur the line for environment ministry’s jurisdiction, especially based on the 2009 Environment Protection and Management Law,” he said. “The ministry would get mixed up with forestry ministry’s authority to issue permit. Meanwhile, the law regulates institution issuing permits. There’s no institution would want to execute its own mistakes.”
He also argued that the merger would limit on the knowledge that environment was not all about forestry issues but it connected with other sectors.
Henri Subagiyo, executive director of Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), said if merged then it should be ensured that it will be lead by a minister who is a pro-environment and not exploitation.
“It [the merger] can be a positive [move] if the minister and its internal structure are more pro-environment, for instance, there will be more director generals for environment protection, conservation, or law enforcement, or it can also include forest protection,” said Subagiyo. “But, if the structure consists of director general for land use changes, for example, then the merger would be a bad idea because it’s exploitative.”
The internal structures, he said, must be approved by the minister and the president.
“At the end, the minister needs to be someone with a strong leadership because he/she would be under two laws, environment and forestry law, which have their own contradictions,” he said adding that Jokowi need to explain to public on his decision to merge both ministries.
In addition, he said that minister of environment should have good track record in the effort of protecting the environment, not a political party member, and has no ties with any business people especially from extractive industries to ensure independency. Fidelis E. Satriastanti
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