Protecting the Environment: Training in Environmental Law in Indonesia - Assignment Example

? Training in Environmental Law in Indonesia Environmental Destruction in Indonesia The major sectors that are mostly affected by environmental destruction in Indonesia involve forest, land and the coastal ecosystems. Indonesian Status of the Environmental Report of 2006 stated that forest and land area destruction is approximately 59.2 million hectares of land where the deforestation rate is about 1.19 million hectares per annum. The big rate of decline in efforts of environmental conservation has been proved to have numerous significant impacts on the nation’s biological diversity in Indonesian’s forest ecosystems. Most forest and land destruction has been caused by forest fires, land settlement, illegal logging, mining and conversion of forest functions into many dangerous activities that later harm the natural environment. It is reported that unsustainable management of Indonesian coastal and marine has caused a lot of harm to it resulting to a failure in environmental conservation (McCaffrey, 2008). Within the last fifty years, more than 9o% of total coral reefs in Indonesia has been destroyed being a product of unsustainable management and destructive activities like over-fishing, terrestrial pollution, sedimentation and coral mining. The Indonesian mangrove fore’s, which initially covered more than 3.7 million hectares of land in Indonesia back in 1993, has been reduced to 1.5 million hectares according to a report released in 2005. This shows that there has been a 59% decrease in the total mangrove covered land in duration of less than twelve years. Reasons for training on Environmental Law The main reason why the seminar on protecting the environment and training in environmental law was a way of promoting the Public Information Disclosure Act (PIDA) and other regulations that are related to environmental management which are mandated to regulate people’s rights to information on the environment. Secondly, the training was meant to promote Indonesia’s government information to the people/public. It was more formal to give this information to both environmentalists and people from different fields as a way to disseminate information pertaining to environmental conservation and the risks involved in environmental destruction (Pevato, 2003). Another reason was to give a strong foundation to the community on realization of the benefits that come with access to information about the environment and ways to advocate and utilize the quality of the environment. The training would promote better policy and bring regulatory changes in relation to water and air pollution control by the use of environmental information which is found under a program called STRIPE. The training was a preparation for an avenue to discuss the indicators and questions that zoom in many peoples’ minds relating to issues of environmental concern. This would give the participants a one on one dialogue where they would seek clarification in areas they feel not explained exhaustively. Through training the delegates regarding to water and other pollution, and different ways of controlling the pollution, for instance in coal power plant and pulp industry (Pevato, 2003). They would then be taught in different ways of avoiding such pollution through the use other better ways that are environmentally friendly. Global education is an education that is usually concerned with matters that are related to human being’s survival in the world as a global village. International studies are a branch of the broad global education where global education shows how human beings interdepend and the fate they all share regardless of the nation where they live. Many learners have continuously confused between global education and multicultural studies. Multicultural education specializes in the study of diverse ethnic groups within some geographic boundaries, such as a nation. Each year, individual human issues grow to become global issues as human seek to be employed, use and abuse air, acquire resources, change of habitat due to population growth and pressure, access oceans and resources found in it and struggle to understand their cultural and geographical diversity. Therefore, it is clear that multicultural education differs with global education in that multicultural education is one that consists and relates to people from diverse cultures which might not necessarily be of different nations (Tillman & Sceurich, 2013) Challenges faced in the law implementation One of the major challenges that face Indonesia in its effort to implement its program is the lawlessness to information access. Indonesia does not have a law that is specific on setting out the requirements that should be met for one to acquire information on the environment. As a result the public is limited to specific information which is paramount for environmental conservation (McCaffrey, 2008). Secondly, there is a compliant mechanism that is ineffective. The country has made a step in establishing a public compliant mechanism. However, there are very few centers for complaint response thus agency response is at most times limited as a result of weak coordination and resource constraints. Citizens’ participation in the enforcement of environmental regulations and laws is minimal due to limited public assistance. Though the nation provides for an avenue for its citizens to bring forth legal action by the use of class action and standing provisions, generally, victims lack information on legal rights and relevant resources to support them in pursuing claims including citizen’s potential roles in administering of criminal actions (Pevato, 2003). Recommendations There a number of recommendations the Indonesian government should put in place to avoid a repeat in the occurrence of a disaster like the one which occurred. There should be creation of awareness to all citizens regardless of their social, religious or economic background (McCaffrey, 2008). Among the many recommendations that have been done is the establishment of a “green license business” and a supervisory that will ensure that is followed. It is the legal duty of the government to work together with the relevant agencies in an effort to support the integration of this project through taking the necessary control measures. It should always issue these licenses in line with new integrated laws that should also contain environmental control measures for businesses. The government should also develop an integrated permitting system. Members of the public and other individuals who wish to engage in activities under this system should apply and pay for such documents as liquid waste disposal license, nuisance permit, location permit and emission disposal license. All these should be integrated to form a comprehensive environmental license. This would ensure that business people and industry owners feel the effect of disposing any waste or causing any damage to the natural environment (Pevato, 2003). Another recommendation is the establishment of a strong citizen compliant mechanism. This will help to improve the detection of those that violate laws that govern environmental conservation. The government should work hand in hand with institutions that manage the environment to lay down simplified procedures and provide comprehensive mechanisms, for instance the use of SMS systems, hotlines, or the internet by the citizens to give relevant information to the government about cases of destruction to the natural environment. It should be the duty of the government to increase its capacity of monitoring and inspection. The government should ensure that at all times; it supervises and manages all the activities that are done on all the natural resources and the environment at large (McCaffrey, 2008). Finally, citizens should be educated about the modern ways of environmental conservation. They should be taught such tips as recycling and reusing waste matter instead of disposing it to the natural environment and use of fuels that do not pollute the environment for instance the biogas. References McCaffrey, S. C. & Salcido, R. (2008). Global Issues in Environmental Law. New York: West. Pevato, P. M. (2003). International Environmental Law. California: Ashgate/Dartmouth. Tillman, L. C. & Scheurich, J. J. (2013). Hanbook of Research on Educational Leadership for Equity and Diversity. Wisconsin-Madison, Routledge. Read More