Jakarta – A lack of coordination between government institutions, as well as inconsistent and overlapping laws, have been preventing the government from taking the necessary measures to protect the environment, experts say.
"Each sector strives for its own interest, and each uses a different set of rules to justify its activities," Nurhasan Ismail, a lecturer from Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said during a meeting on environmental mainstreaming in Jakarta earlier this week. He cited spatial planning as an example.
"Many entities have spatial planning divisions in their organizations," Nurhasan explained. "For instance, there is a spatial planning division in the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, the National Development Planning Agency and the Public Works Ministry. This overlapping creates confusion and conflicts from time to time," he said.
Poor spatial planning stemming from lack of coordination hinders the development of more green spaces, State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said on the same occasion.
"According to Law No. 26/2007, a region must have at least 30 percent of green spaces in its territory," Rachmat said. However, the country's capital, Jakarta, only has around 10 percent of its total area dedicated to green areas.
Rachmat said the lack of commitment to build green areas in the country came partly from contradictory and poorly formulated laws.
"There are currently 12 laws on natural resources management, which affect regional development and spatial planning," the minister said.
"However, those laws are still pro-investor and exploitative. They are not beneficial to environmental conservation nor to the people's rights."
Maria S. Soemardjono, another professor at Gadjah Mada University, said Indonesia failed to manage its resources appropriately due to weak policy-making.
"Legislators tend to formulate policies regarding the exploitation of resources according to each sector's needs. Thus the existing laws sometimes contain contradictory terms or purposes," Maria commented.
All laws on the exploitation of natural resources were derived from Article 3 (33) of the 1945 Constitution, which not only stipulates the government has the authority to control the country's resources, but also that those resources must be used for the people's welfare.
"However, people tend to interpret that article according to their own interests, thus often causing inconsistency," she said.
She added the inconsistency might lead to the depleting of more of the country's resources, which have been dwindling due to irresponsible exploitation.
Maria said for over 40 years, the archipelagic country has been exploiting its resources without sufficient attention to environmental sustainability.
"The global economic crisis will further increase the country's exploitation, because people view resources as an easy means to generate income," she said.
According to her, legislators need to formulate a comprehensive and detailed law to manage the country's resources. "We also need a special ministry to supervise the management of all natural resources," Maria said at the same forum.
Nurhasan said legislators should take into account existing laws before approving any drafts – forwarded by government institutions – wishing to exploit the country's resources.
"Legislators tend to pass bills according to their political interests, without considering the consequences of those bills or how they will reconcile them with existing laws," he explained.
For instance, Nurhasan said, some laws tended to give too much away to companies wishing to exploit resources.
He cited the now defunct Article 22 of Law No. 25/2007, stipulating that foreign investors were automatically given the right to use land for 95 years for their businesses. (dis)