[Kabar-indonesia] 5 JP Special Reports: Document Warns of Public Health Disasters

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

5 JP Special Reports: 

- Environmental damage a multifaceted problem 

- Document warns of public health disasters 

- Susi Pudjiastuti: Environmentally aware 
  businesswoman 

- A threat to Indonesia's rich biodiversity 

- Good report, but not enough 

The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Environmental damage a multifaceted problem 

A grim illustration of the rapid degradation of Indonesia's environment is 
recorded 
in 2005 State of Environment, a document published recently by the Office of 
the State Minister of the Environment. 

The report looks at disasters that have ravaged parts of the archipelago and 
the 
even greater threats posed by sanitation shortcomings and increased economic 
globalization. 

The Jakarta Post's Tubagus Arie Rukmantara examines aspects of the report, 
which runs to more than 290 pages, in the articles below: 

Many Indonesians no doubt wish they will never again have to hear the song 
News to Friends, by noted folk singer Ebiet G. Ade -- the tune that is all over 
the radio and TV every time a disaster hits a part of the country. 

However, according to Professor Suparkah of the Indonesian Institute of 
Sciences, the song is likely to be played for some time yet. 

Suparkah says disasters here are unavoidable because the country is located 
in the Pacific's "Ring of Fire", where a string of volcanoes and fault lines 
put the whole archipelago under constant threat. 

But it is not only natural disasters that Indonesians have to fear. The 
Office of the State Minister for the Environment has come to the conclusion that 
the many catastrophes hitting the country are being worsened by the rapid 
destruction of the environment. 

"Environmental degradation is getting worse every day; that is why we have 
compiled a 'state of the environment' report to allow us to analyze the causes 
of the series of disasters that we have recently faced," State Minister of the 
Environment Rachmat Witoelar said at the report's launch. 

The recently published 2005 State of Environment Report highlights the rapid 
degradation of the nation's forests, seas, air and fresh water resources and 
notes that these, combined with a general lack of spatial planning, greatly 
affect public health. 

The 295-page report notes that the country's more than 120 million hectares 
of forest, the world's third-largest tropical rain forest, are rapidly 
vanishing, with a deforestation rate rising from more than 2 million hectares in 
previous years to 3.5 million ha last year. 

The usual causes -- unchecked illegal logging, forest fires and land 
conversion -- are blamed for forest destruction. 

However, the report also notes that deforestation is likely to accelerate 
because more protected forests are set to be cleared as the cash-strapped 
government allows 13 mining companies to convert areas into producing zones. 

Of the 13, six filed requests to turn more than 300,000 ha into mining sites 
last year, the report said. 

Some experts, meanwhile, have challenged the idea that deforestation is the 
major cause of natural disasters that affect populations. They say population 
growth and inappropriate spatial planning are the main reason for the large 
number of human fatalities. 

Nevertheless, all experts agree that deforestation often increases the size 
and intensity of disasters. 

The grim picture extends beyond the forests to marine areas, which make up 
two-thirds of the country's territory. 

The report said of the country's 51,000 square kilometers of coral reef 
areas, only 5.8 percent are well-preserved, a decrease from 2004 when 6.8 percent 
were in good condition. Indonesia's coral reef areas are the largest in 
Southeast Asia. 

Meanwhile, about 57 percent of the country's 9.2 million hectares of mangrove 
forests are in a critical condition, increasing the risks of soil erosion and 
flooding for people living along the nation's 81,000 square kilometers of 
coastline. 

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said the degradation of 
marine resources meant more than 750 coastal villages were flooded in 2005 or 
suffered from erosion-related problems, posing serious health and economic risks 
to more than 16 million coastal people and three million fishermen. 

The report predicts large-scale floods are likely to continue in the future 
and it notes that of the country's 400 "watershed" areas -- land that drains 
rain into marshes, streams, rivers, lakes or groundwater -- 62 are in critical 
or damaged condition. 

Of the 62 damaged watershed areas, 17 are in Java, where about half of the 
nation's population live. 

The report said in the past five years, more than 54 million hectares, or 
almost 7 percent, of the country's total watershed areas, have been converted to 
other functions, including residential areas. 

While the number of recorded floods and landslides dropped to 41 from 106 in 
2004, the intensity of these disasters was worse, causing more loss of life 
and higher material and economic losses. 

However, the report did not quantify data on the loss of life or the economic 
costs of last year's natural disasters. 

"These conditions are caused by the fact that the nation's development does 
not yet take into account the need for an ecological balance and is merely 
about exploiting natural resources," Agus Prabowo, environment director at the 
National Development Planning Agency, told a discussion on the environment and 
disasters recently. 

One cost that can be quantified is the amount the government has earmarked 
for environmental disasters this year -- Rp 4 trillion (about US$440 million) 
from the 2006 state budget. The money is designated for environmental programs 
across all ministries and 58 percent has already been apportioned to 
rehabilitate environmentally damaged areas, while another 18 percent has been allotted 
to handle the effects of pollution. 

"If the government does not change the way it manages natural resources soon 
and revise all regulations that are exploitation-oriented, the county's 
development will only yield more ecological disasters," Walhi executive director 
Chalid Muhammad said. 

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The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Document warns of public health disasters 

photo: Indonesia's water quality still gets poor marks in the 2005 State of 
the Environment report as large quantities of human feces pollute the water 
widely 
used by millions of Indonesians, putting them at risk of numerous health 
problems, especially diarrhea. JP/P.J. Leo 

Aside from the increasing threat of natural disasters as a consequence of 
environmental degradation, the 2005 State of the Environment report also warns of 
a looming crisis in public health, health experts and environmentalists say. 

The annual report, which was first released in 2001, underlined the threat to 
public health due to worsening environmental conditions, causing various 
illnesses and the spending of billions of rupiah for treatment and medication. 

"Health problems are the downstream indicator of what's happening in the 
environment," Health Ministry director for environmental health Wan Alkadri told 
The Jakarta Post. 

He said the environment was among the four major aspects that determined the 
level of human health. The three others were behavior, health facilities and 
genetic factors. 

"Between 50 to 60 percent of sick people are sick because their environment 
is getting worse," he said. 

Last year's State of the Environment report clearly showed that most 
Indonesians face health risks from polluted air, toxic water and tons of piles of 
solid waste, he said. 

The report said of the 10 major cities monitored, only Semarang in Central 
Java and Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan had 200 days of clean air in 12 
months. 

Jakarta had only 29 days, Bandung 40, Surabaya 21 and Medan 24 days of 
healthy air. On the remaining days, the cities' air contained harmful compounds, 
such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. 

"Polluted air can cause health risks from respiratory problems to cancer," 
Wan Alkadri said, adding that it would also reduce the nation's productivity and 
boost spending on medicine. 

He also pointed out that seasonal forest fires that produced harmful haze 
worsened the already poor air quality. 

The 2005 State of the Environment report said forest fires occurred in over 
13,000 hectares of forest, in Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan. 

"The haze increases the concentration of nitrogen, ash and scores of 
hazardous compounds in the air. This will cause acute respiratory infection," he said. 

World Wide Fund for Nature executive director Mubariq Ahmad warned that 
besides polluting the air, forest fires also deforested much of Indonesia's 
pristine forests that are a vital component for regulating water supply. 

The report said the country possessed 6 percent of the world's water supply; 
alternatively, 21 percent of the water supply for the Asia Pacific is here. 
However, forest and wetland conversion have degraded the nation's water supply. 

The report said groundwater had dropped to between 40 meters and 80 meters 
below the soil surface. 

On the other hand, much of the country's rivers, one of the most vital water 
sources, were heavily polluted. Over 30 rivers across the country contained 
high levels of chemicals and human waste. 

"If people consume contaminated water, they'll suffer diarrhea," Wan Alkadri 
said. 

Last year, 5,000 people in Indonesia suffered from diarrhea with a fatality 
rate of about 2 percent. 

The report also highlighted the outbreak of bird flu, which has infected 54 
people and killed at least 41 of them, as a consequence of negligence in 
spatial planning. 

Deputy to the State Minister for the Environment Isa Karmisa Ardiputra said 
his office required poultry farms to be located hundreds of meters away from 
residential areas. 

"Violations of spatial planning regulations have partly contributed to 
rampant spread of H5N1 because it allows the deadly virus to infect people more 
easily," he said. 

Wan Alkadri warned,"should environmental conditions in the country worsen, 
health disasters will occur in the near future". (Tb. Arie Rukmantara) 

---------------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Susi Pudjiastuti: Environmentally aware businesswoman 

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Ciamis

On Dec. 28, 2004, Susi Pudjiastuti and her husband Christian van Strombeck 
were the first to penetrate Meulaboh, a city in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam 
devastated by the tsunami and isolated for three days, and later Simeulue off Aceh, 
which was also hard to reach.

The suffering of children as tsunami survivors in Aceh moved Susi and 
prompted her to do as much as she could to help them. 

She spent a lot of money on the humanitarian effort. 

But she became really tearful when the tsunami hit her own coastal hometown 
on July 17. She was in Medan that day and since her involvement in Aceh has 
spent about only 10 days a month in Pangandaran, West Java. 

"An employee called to tell me the tsunami was sweeping through. I said he 
must have been mistaken; I wouldn't believe it as the boys there were fond of 
kidding to make my heart throb. 

"'It's true, 'bu, I'm now running away to save myself; Pangandaran is being 
washed away, 'bu', he said," as Susi recalled. 

It took two hours for her to believe the bad news until she got confirmation 
from high-ranking officials, including Minister of Communications Hatta 
Radjasa. The mother of three immediately headed back home with her husband. 

"I must get home fast. I can't stay here (in Medan)," she remarked before 
leaving. 

Her mother and siblings were the first she sought to find on arrival at 
Pangandaran at 3 a.m. the next day. Under chaotic circumstances, she promptly 
prepared emergency kitchens and called her peers at banks to supply vegetables. 

She made available her cold storage facility filled with fish fillets and 
shrimps as well as kitchen equipment, to provide food for 3,000 refugees and 
volunteers, and her freezer to store unidentified corpses. 

Later in the morning, Susi lent her two Cessna Grand Caravan light airplanes, 
which had taken she and her husband to Meulaboh and Simeulue, for the 
transportation of dozens of journalists. 

They then published and broadcast images that described the extent of damage 
on the southern coasts of West and Central Java caused by the tsunami's 
six-meter-high waves. 

Hundreds of fishermen lost their boats and homes, some of whom went missing 
and perished. Pangandaran was the worst-hit area on West Java's south coast. It 
is not only Susi's birthplace but also the location where she started her 
career as a seafood exporter that has made her a well-known name among government 
authorities. 

As a Yogyakarta high school dropout in 1983, she rebelled against her 
conventional upbringing by her father, a consultant, and her mother, a landowner. 

"With only Rp 750,000 in start-up capital, I worked as a small-scale trader, 
buying fish from auctions and selling it in the traditional market," she 
related. 

Susi used to drive a truck with fish gathered from Pangandaran fishermen for 
delivery to a wholesale trader in Jakarta. As demand increased, she traveled 
northward to the Cirebon and Indramayu coasts for more fish, raising the volume 
she sold from 50 kilograms to one ton per day. 

In her two years of hard work, she occasionally had to spend the night in the 
wholesaler's warehouse in Jakarta due to exhaustion, only to drive again the 
next day to collect fish from northern coasts. 

This taught her a lesson and made her appreciate the life of fishermen, who 
face great risks as they put to sea on simple craft to earn a living. Sadly, 
local market prices are too low to support even a modest existence, and they are 
reluctant to move to cities because of the high unemployment there. 

Consequently, Susi began to think of ways to raise fish prices to improve the 
lives of fishermen with her growing business. As the high price of fish could 
not be secured on the local market, she chose to become a fish exporter. 

"I exported fish for the first time in 1997 after building a fish storage 
factory in Sukabumi in 1996," said the sharp-eyed woman. 

No bank was prepared to provide loans for capital due to minimal trust in 
small- and medium-scale businesses. She had to sell her house and the car she had 
as a local market wholesaler, for factory construction. 

"None of the banks was willing to cooperate," noted the exporter, who has an 
easy-going personality. 

Good personal communications became another asset. A fluent speaker of 
coastal Javanese, Susi got along very well with local fishermen. Her good English 
and fair for German also helped in her relations with foreign buyers. 

She learned a lot from the fish export business by trying to cater for what 
her customers wanted. 

"Fresh fish without preservatives; that's what they demand," she pointed out. 
To meet the request, she taught fishermen the best way to catch fish and 
shrimps, which they found hard to accept after decades of conventional fishing 
through the use of closely woven nets, explosives and preservatives. 

"I had to tell them repeatedly to use nets with a mesh of at least three 
centimeters and how to lift the nets so that small fish would not be caught 
unintentionally," she said. 

Imposing a Rp 10,000 fine on those dumping rubbish around her house, Susi 
attributed the mistaken fishing methods to the lack of local people's involvement 
in environmental management. The government had only treated them as objects 
in all of this, thereby leaving them unaware of conservation and the harmful 
effects of damage to the environment. 

Her perseverance, however, finally resulted in the market price of 
Pangandaran fish going up, giving it a higher value than a similar catch from other 
regions. For instance, lobsters from Pangandaran cost Rp 180,000 per kg compared 
with only Rp 160,000 from other areas. 

Her fish exports, fresh from the sea as desired by foreign customers, raised 
the price of layur (scabbard fish) from Rp 300 to Rp 700 per kg to Rp 11,000 
per kg. When, in 1998, the economic crisis set in, Indonesia's fish and lobster 
exports reached US$5 million to $6 million a year. 

According to Susi, most of the more than 20,000 fishermen in the Ciamis 
coastal area were not aware that larger, cleaner fish would sell better. 
Consequently, fish production started declining in the area last year. 

Before any fish crisis affected Pangandaran, Susi anticipated the problem by 
buying the two Cessna Grand Caravans in mid-2004 to carry fish hauls from the 
southern areas of Banten, West Java, Central Java and East Java, to be sold 
speedily to customers in Japan, America and Europe. Now she plans to build eight 
landing strips along the Java coast. 

Three months ago, she began ferrying around 50 Pangandaran fishermen to the 
Aceh sea for migratory fishing. In fact, two weeks before the tsunami the 
fishermen could have returned for a lot more fish. 

The sea would be teeming with tenggiri (Spanish mackerel), enabling locals to 
earn Rp 1 million to Rp 3 million a day from the sale of this fish. 

But God seems to have disposed in another way. Susi could only interpret the 
tsunami as an act of God to cleanse Pangandaran, once excluded from the list 
of tourist destinations owing to its sleazy environment. 

Thousands of vendors' tents were put up five meters beyond the high water 
mark; with rubbish littering their surroundings, they spoiled the natural beauty 
of the area. The bold woman frequently protested about this to the local 
administration. 

"I warned them against erecting their stalls in inappropriate places as they 
would become their own graves, but nobody took any notice. Now it has happened 
and survivors came to me, bursting into tears for having lost everything," 
said Susi, who almost always is seen smoking. 

Despite her frustration at seeing her warnings go unheeded, she was not 
deterred. She gave some gasoline and food to fishermen who were brave enough to 
fish a week after the tsunami. 

She also pledged to buy the entire catch from the fishing operation. 

"It's high time everybody learned how to treat the environment with proper 
respect," implored Susi. 

She is now staying put at home to monitor the reconstruction of Pangandaran 
as an environmentally friendly tourism and fishing zone. 

---------------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, August 8, 2006

A threat to Indonesia's rich biodiversity 

Despite sobering statistics about environmental degradation last year, the 
2005 State of the Environment report also highlights some welcome news about the 
stratosphere above the archipelago and more findings of new species.

Citing observation data from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the 
report says the stratospheric ozone layer above Indonesia has improved to a 
level that could reduce the amount of harmful ultraviolet radiation reaching the 
Earth. 

Experts believe that the stratospheric layer of the atmosphere, where 90 
percent of the ozone exists, blocks exposure to harmful ultraviolet rays, which 
could cause eye cataracts and decrease human immunity, as well as affect crops 
and sea plankton that would disrupt the marine food chain. 

The report said that in the last few years, stratospheric ozone concentration 
ranged between 216 dobson units (DU) and 248 DU. 

The ozone layer is considered normal when it measures about 300 Dobson Units 
(equal to three millimeters), while a hole occurs when its thickness reduces 
to 100 Dobson Units. 

Decreasing usage of aerosol and other ozone-depleting compounds (ODS), due to 
the government's continuous efforts to phase out the use of such compounds in 
the country greatly contributed to the improved condition, the report said. 

Deputy to the state minister for the environment Masnellyarti Hilman said the 
government had cut the use of ozone-depleting substances by around 4,100 
metric tons since 1994, when ozone layer protection programs began in the country. 

"Our next challenge is to cut 6,325 metric tons of ODS (traded here) by the 
end of 2007," she said recently. 

The government believes the biggest challenge it is facing is widespread 
smuggling and illegal trade in ODS. It is estimated that around 4,000 metric tons 
of ODS is circulating in the country, used mostly by air-conditioning 
servicing stations that service old refrigerators and outdated car air-conditioning 
systems. 

Another heartening development indicated in the report is that more new 
species were discovered last year, placing Indonesia as the one of the world's 
richest countries in terms of biodiversity. 

The report highlighted the finding of scores of new animal and plant species 
in Foya Mountain, Papua, by a group of scientists from Conservation 
International Indonesia, who dubbed the place "the closest place to the Garden of Eden 
you're going to find on Earth". 

The scientists found 24 types of palm tree, of which five were declared new 
species, and another 550 species of plant. 

They also found dozens of rare species of animals including from kangaroo, 
amphibians, birds and butterflies. 

However, rapid deforestation, which last year totaled more than three million 
hectares, threatened research in revealing the truth about the country's 
biodiversity. 

"All that pride means nothing if deforestation and the destruction of the 
habitats that are home to those species is continually taking place, as it is at 
present," said Banjar Y. Laban, the Forestry Ministry's director of 
conservation areas, in a statement following the recent discovery of a snake with the 
ability to spontaneously change color in West Kalimantan province, called 
Enhydris gyii, or known locally as the Kapuas-Mud Snake. 

The report also exposed imminent threats from diminishing wetlands areas on 
Java island, of which there are about 1,000 hectares in Greater Jakarta that 
have been converted into residential and industrial areas. 

Citing Wetlands International Indonesia data, the report said the country's 
remaining wetlands stood at about 1,300 hectares last year, compared with over 
2,300 hectares in 2004. 

World Wide Fund for Nature executive director Mubariq Ahmad warned that such 
rapid disappearance of habitat could halt further the findings of new species 
across Indonesia. 

He cited as an example that in Kalimantan alone, at least one new species of 
animal has been found every month in the last 10 years. 

"The country's worsening environmental condition is a threat to uncovering 
more knowledge about our biodiversity," he told The Jakarta Post. 

(Tb. Arie Rukmantara) 

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The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Good report, but not enough 

Environmentalists have praised the government for issuing a transparent 
report on 
the state of the nation's environment, but have criticized it for failing to 
inform the public of the greater threats the environment is facing -- weak 
regulations and the global economy. 

Chalid Muhammad of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WAHLI) said the 
2005 State of the Environment report had succeeded in informing the public 
that the environment was in a critical condition. 

However, it failed to show that the government's erroneous perspective on 
development was a major factor that caused such a situation, he added. 

"The report failed to show that environmental degradation, which is bringing 
about ecological disasters, originated way back to 1967, when the doctrine 
'all for development' began," he said. 

He believed that legislation passed in 1967 on foreign investment, mining and 
forestry was very exploitative, allowing giant mining operations and logging 
concessions to begin operating. That exploitative spirit still colored 
subsequent revisions to the legislation, he added. 

"Overexploitation has resulted in ecological disasters -- that is 
unavoidable," he said. 

Mubariq Ahmad of the World Wide Fund for Nature Indonesia lamented that the 
government forgot to put in the "global footprint" of ecological threats in the 
report. 

He cited that world's growing economies, such as China and India, would 
further degrade our natural resources because they imported a lot of raw materials 
from Indonesia. 

"China's timber industry is growing at a rate of 20 percent per year. Where 
do you think they get the wood from?," he said, adding that China's hunger for 
timber would put most of our forests at risk. 

He also mentioned the threat of Europe's thirst for biofuel, which would 
promote more conversion of forests to oil palm plantations. 

"The fact is only one day after European governments announced that they 
would subsidize biofuel, many foreign businessmen went to Kalimantan and Papua to 
offer investment in oil palm plantations," he said. 

"Do you think such investment will not cause any harm to our environment?" 
he asked. 

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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