Jakarta – Experts on Saturday blamed humans for contributing to environmental damages that eventually lead to so-called natural disasters.
"Flooding is not a natural disaster, but a man-made one," Gatot Irianto, director for water management at the Agriculture Ministry, told a discussion here Saturday.
He said the country lost three million hectares of forest and at least 1.7 million hectares of rice fields every year because of mismanagement and weak control of land conversion. "Bali has lost 700 hectares of its rice fields to the construction of housing complexes," Gatot said.
He said part of the responsibility should be shouldered by both the central government and local administrations. "Through decentralization, the local administrations have been given the authority to allow land conversion, which results in heavy land damages."
A control mechanism was needed, albeit in a system of decentralized government, he said. "We need good leaders to settle this mess," he said.
He said the 2007 law on disaster management didn't regulate punishment for officials who had allowed people to damage the environment. "The law only stipulates the administrative sanctions, not the legal punishment," he said.
Abdullah Azwar Anas, a legislator of the House of Representatives' housing and public works commission, said the government lacked seriousness in punishing people involved in illegal logging, citing an example in East Kalimantan.
He also cited the failure of the Jakarta province administration to ensure all housing complexes in the capital city allocate at least 30 percent of their areas to acting as water catchments.
"The luxurious Kelapa Gading housing area has been inundated by not having a sufficient water catchment," said Anas. "Six hours of non-stop heavy rainfall will inundate more than 1,000 villages, but it only takes two hours of heavy rainfall to inundate some areas of Jakarta," he said.
Bahal Edison Naiborhu, director for spatial land management at the Public Works Ministry, however, said both the government and the public were responsible for environmental damage.
"There is supposed to be a sharing of responsibility between the government and the public," he said. Zannuba "Yenny" Arifah Chafsoh Rahman Wahid, daughter of former president Abdurrahman Wahid and former presidential adviser, said the government should expedite the establishment of the National Agency on Disaster Management (BNPB).
"The government should finalize both the government regulation and the Presidential decree on the establishment of the BNPB," Yenny, secretary general of the National Awakening Party (PKB), said in a separate discussion Saturday. The agency is expected to replace the ad hoc Coordinating Agency for Disaster Management (Bakornas).
"I have just returned from a visit to Central and East Java, and I can tell you the government has been so sluggish in handling the aftermath (of the flooding disaster)," said Yenny. "Many people died not because they were drowned in the floods but because they were left starving in the cold."
Yenni said Bakornas failed to carry out its tasks as there had been no clear coordination among institutions involved in managing disasters. "The government must soon replace Bakornas (with the BNPB) because the ad-hoc agency apparently lacks authority to carry out coordination with ministries." (rff/lln)