Forests and Land: Together we find hope

On 10 June, 2015 the SETAPAK program together with eleven NGO partners held a national seminar to bring together stakeholders interested in and working on improving forest and land governance in Indonesia.

Presentations from speakers can be downloaded from the event page.

Central Information Commission rule in favour of public information

The Central Information Commission (Komisi Informasi Pusat/KIP) ruled in Forest Watch Indonesia’s favour following a request for public information from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The ruling confirmed that the data requested by FWI is public information, and not exempt from being released publicly as had been claimed by the Ministry.

The decision was announced on Friday 8 May, after FWI had struggled for nearly a year to obtain information from the Ministry. The data requested is basic information to enable the general public to monitor legal and illegal activities in forest use monitoring. This decision demonstrates that the Information Commission is committed to implementing the Freedom of Information Act (Law no. 14 of 2008).

KIP rule in FWI’s favour 8 May 2015

See FWI website: https://fwi.or.id/english/publikasi/today-the-public-information-disclosure-act-begins-to-be-enforced/KIP rule in FWI’s favour 8 May 2015″ width=”316″ height=”178″ />

Membaca di website FWI: https://fwi.or.id/publikasi/hari-ini-undang-undang-keterbukaan-informasi-mulai-ditegakkan/

Prevent Abuse of Public Resource Before Local Direct Election in Indonesia

Indonesia will have upcoming local direct election that will implemented simultaneously in half of total local government at the end of year 2015. The steps of this event should be started soon and will co-manage by central and local election commissions. The moment of power transition usually followed by the reconfiguration of positions in politics, bureaucratic actors, as well as their relation to the private/business actors in local. The challenges in the transition period is to hold and maintain power relation as well to gain the most benefit new position of each important actors. Every actors will see this transition period and playing important roles based their owned access to resources including public resources to show supports to their allay who are competing as candidates. In this situation, all of supports such as campaign financing, facilities and networks are important by all candidates and should be closely monitored by public. Even more in the regions where the incumbent mayor or governors are re-runs for the second tenure, the moment of local direct election will be very important.

The important of this issue raised to be related with the natural resources problem is the possible use of licenses of natural resources in local by the local leader to be exchanged with support money or facilities for the local election campaign. The incumbent candidate who runs for their second tenure tends to use every possible sources that can be accessed for successful campaign. Many direct grants program from local budget will be addressed to communities, many services will be delivered using very low level of bureaucracies to get in touch directly to the grass root level people, the using of government facilities such as vehicles, offices, communication, media and the latest and the most dangerous is the using of power to produce licenses that can be distributed and exchanged with the political supports, money supports and networks supports.

In the election time these exchanges could be happened since the nomination period inside political parties that will promote the candidate until the campaign period when candidates really need networks to gathered supports from constituents. This practices happened in the latest election of 2014, in some regions. In regions for example Jambi, many parliament candidates posters placed inside the forest as only as a sign or showing of support to certain political parties and candidates by the owners of the land or forest concessions.

To prevent the use of natural resources licenses to be used by the local incumbent or non incumbent candidates, we have to endorse strongly to Central Election Commission and Minister of Interior to formulate regulation of moratorium of forest of natural resources licensing before the simultaneous local direct election starts on April/June 2015. We can not imagined how big is the catastrophic damages will occurs in local if there is no one initiated to prevent this.

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Best Regards..

New team to manage environmental and forestry cases

Indonesia’s Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya Bakar on 12 March announced a team to manage complaints related to environment and forestry issues (Tim Pelayanan Penanganan Kasus-kasus Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (TP2KLHK)). Aside from government officials Himasar Sirait, the ministry’s environmental law enforcement deputy, and Prie Supriadi, the ministry’s forestry inspector general, the team consists of independent experts including Chalid Muhammad, coordinator of the Green Indonesia Institute, Abdon Nababan, AMAN Secretary General, Myrna Safitri, Epistema Institute, Noer Fauzi Rachman, Sajogyo Institute for Indononesian Agrarian Studies, Teguh Surya, from Greenpeace, Sandra Moniaga Commissioner at the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

According to Nurbaya, the team will handle cases that victimize people and incur state losses, such as land disputes between indigenous people and companies, as well as environmental destruction cases.

Reports can be submitted online through the website:

https://pengaduan.menlhk.go.id

Via SMS: 0811 932 932

Via email: [email protected]

Or in person on the first floor of the Environment and Forestry Ministry, Gedung Manggala Wanabakti Blok 1, Jalan Gatot Soebroto, Senayan, Jakarta.

New regional governance law: implications for forest and land governance

The regional governance law (Law no 23 of 2014) introduced in October 2014 will have a significant impact on land licensing. The new law transfers authority for issuing permits in forestry, fisheries, mining and oil and gas, from district to provincial governments. District governments no long have authority to issue new permits, but are required to continue management and monitoring of concession permits issued prior to the introduction of the law until its end date.

What are the financial implications of this policy for revenues and budget allocations?