Diska Putri Pamungkas – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's much-publicized tree-planting campaign in a Bali mangrove forest on Wednesday was nothing more than hollow posturing to burnish his green credentials, a leading environmental group says.
Yudhoyono took part in the event at the Ngurah Rai mangrove forest in Badung district as part of the "Save Mangrove, Save Earth" campaign, alongside international football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, where he also pledged to protect the country's remaining 3.7 million hectares of mangrove forests.
However, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has slammed the event as a deeply ironic publicity stunt, given that under the Yudhoyono administration's own conflicting policies, the entire Ngurah Rai forest could be cleared to make way for tourist development projects.
Wayan Gendo Suardana, the head of the Bali chapter of Walhi, said that the tree-planting event "is irrelevant if you know the true story behind the forest and the changing conservation policies."
"The president is shameless, it's all pure preening on his part," he told the Jakarta Globe by phone.
He said that although the Yudhoyono administration moved in 2011 to protect the 1,373-hectare mangrove forest from development by including it in a moratorium on issuing new forest-clearing permits, it changed tack soon after.
In 2012, a presidential decree was issued authorizing the construction of the Nusa Dua-Ngurah Rai-Tanjung Benoa toll road, to be built for the upcoming APEC summit and cutting straight through the mangrove forest.
That effectively changed the land-use status of most of the blocks in the forest from conservation blocks to exploitation blocks, thus permitting the clearing and commercial development of large swaths of the forest.
Gendo pointed out that the same patch of forest where Yudhoyono and Ronaldo planted mangrove saplings earlier in the day was one of those that had been turned into an exploitation block.
"You can't see SBY's statements as anything other than image-building," he said. "The place where he planted the mangroves is close to the toll road and is actually one of the conservation blocks that was changed into an exploitation block."
He added that other threats loomed over the forest beyond just the toll road. "According to Walhi's investigations, there are several big projects proposed for this area, including a university campus, a hospital and marine tourism developments," Gendo said. "We can't see how these projects could be possible without reclamation of the [mangrove swamp]."
The developments have been proposed based on a decree issued last year by the provincial forestry office that expands the total amount of exploitation blocks in the forest from 400 hectares to 700 hectares.
Gendo said the biggest threat of all, which could see the entire Ngurah Rai forest wiped out, came from a proposal from Roy Suryo, the sports minister from Yudhoyono's Democratic Party, to build a Formula 1 race track in the scenic Tanjung Benoa bay, near the toll road.
"That can't happen without destroying the remaining conservation blocks," he said. He added that Walhi deplored the disconnect between the president's rhetoric on environmental conservation and his actual policies.
At the tree-planting event, meanwhile, Yudhoyono said it was important to make the younger generation more aware of the need to protect the country's remaining 3.7 million hectares of mangrove forests. He also lauded Bali residents and officials for what he called their strong commitment to environmental conservation.
"I salute you for taking care of your environment, even as other parts of the country struggle with the problem of forest fires," he said, referring to the scores of hot spots in Sumatra that have blanketed the region and neighboring countries in a choking haze.