Jakarta (Greeners) – Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya, said that Indonesia is facing real changes in protecting environment and nature. Indonesia, Minister Siti added, still has to organize its relationships between nature and human which not just to achieve profits that would benefit several people.
Furthermore, Minister Siti said that protecting the environment not just manage in terms of exploiting the nature but needs to be in proportion and modernized promoting sustainability and environmentally friendly as stipulated under the 1945 Constitution.
She also said environmental management should move away from primitive ways meaning it should be managed in modern ways and using approaches sustainability as the benchmark of environmentally friendly development or uniting human and nature for the future.
“There’s also the concept of justice. Justice for other people for their rights of better environment as stipulated by the 1945 Constitution, Clause 18, and especially justice for future generation where the nature would be passed on to from generation to generation,” she said on Monday (5/6) in conjunction of World Environment Day 2017.
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Hence, she said people should lose sense of ego and free riders along with ‘mob rule’ which currently occupying public space in the country instead develop social entrepreneurship as the balance.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) declared World Environment Day’s theme with Connecting People To Nature.
The theme, she said, was encouraging people to be present with nature, respect the harmony between human and nature for the future of people on earth and natural beauty, treating nature proportional, not [in] primitive ways to gain benefit but also within the environment protection perspective.
“We must not forget that world’s concern on environment has started in 1972 by moving thousands of activities in different parts of the world, starting from cleaning the neighborhood, planting trees, and fights against environmental crimes,” she said.
Meanwhile, Executive Director of Walhi, Nur Hidayati, said World Environmental Day has always been celebrated in the condition of environmental crises which have grew massive from time to time which also the case in Indonesia.
“It is also for the facts that economic policy and development, currently, has been in contradiction with President’s commitment to restore environment, tackle conflicts related to environment and natural resources or land issues, develop economic justice. Even as of today, moratorium policy has yet to be issued by President,” said Hidayati.
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Furthermore, she added that essential ecosystem areas have been threatened with greedy investment, including in peat lands, karst and mangrove. Meanwhile, people fighting for environment and protecting their lands, their living areas, instead, receive human rights violations, from violence and criminalization.
She also said that knowledge and local wisdom in environmental management and natural resources have been ignored.
“The worst part is that throughout World Environment Day in Indonesia, the country is faced on the reality that corporate and environmental culprits and humanity have been violating on Constitution, law, and regulations,” she said.
Reports by Danny Kosasih
21 Apr 2024 
