Tb. Arie Rukmantara, Ubud (Bali) – Sidelining customary laws and undermining tribal wisdom in managing Indonesia's rich natural resources is certainly not what the 1945 Constitution espouses, therefore reinterpretation of the supreme law is badly needed to promote prosperity among Indonesians, environmental law and management experts say.

An expert from the Center for International Environmental Law, Owen Lynch, says the content of the 1945 Constitution has been consistently misinterpreted by various governments that administered Indonesia to state their claims to exploit the country's natural resources on behalf of national interests.

To make matters worse, he says, the present government has not been able to execute Article 18 of the Constitution that acknowledges traditional rights and opens the door for indigenous people to participate in the management of natural wealth.

"The recognition of traditional rights to natural resources should be initiated by scraping regulations that contradict the Constitution," he said in a statement released by the organizer of the 11th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property in Ubud, Bali, on Wednesday.

The five-day conference was attended by over 500 scientists, NGO activists and policy-makers, who discussed the issue of devolution of natural resources.

Owen said the government could demonstrate its willingness to recognize traditional rights by revoking a 2005 presidential decree, which regulates that the state has the right to take over private property for the sake of public interests. Indonesia has the richest natural resources in Southeast Asia, but is falling behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in terms of prosperity and human development. Critics say the country, which has Asia's largest forests area and is rich in mineral, oil and gas reserves, has failed to manage its wealth for the prosperity of its people.

Experts also fear that the government will privatize the management its rich natural resources by issuing controversial laws, such as the 2004 Water Resource Law, the 1999 Forestry Law, the 2001 Oil and Gas Law as well as the bill on energy and mineral resources, all of which were passed for the sake of luring foreign investors.

Director of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture's Center for Regional Systems Analysis Planning and Development, Ernan Rustiadi, said the government's monopoly over the right to manage common property, a property collectively managed by traditional groups, such as land, contradicted the 1960 Agrarian Law that recognized land ownership based on customary law.

"The government seems to think that everything that is not privately owned belongs to the state. On the contrary, much of the land is owned by traditional groups," Ernan, said the chair of the conference.

"Unfortunately, the government feels they're referring to Article 33 of the Constitution that stipulates that 'Land, water and natural wealth contained in them is controlled by the state'", he continued, adding that the government had failed to use its authority to help its citizens prosper.

"That contradicts the article's last sentence, which enjoins the government to exploit natural resources for the well-being of its citizens," he said.