InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – As a wide archipelago country, Indonesia has vast land and many natural resources that massively contributed to economic security and development. These made Indonesia as the 16th biggest economy in the world.
When the elected President, Prabowo Subianto and elected Vice President, Gibran Rakabuming Raka may be preparing their cabinet to take over the governance on 20 October, this could be the right moment to review the government structures in President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) era and review the policies, regualtions, and the institutions that managed areas and natural resources for the past decade.
Even though Prabowo promised to continue the economic policies in Jokowi’s era, the new government needs to get some lessons from the complex challenges and excesses of natural resource and area management and governance in the past decade. The most stand out challenges are the overlapping regulations and institutions, the increasing area conflicts with the indigenous people, deforestation, illegal mining, and unruled natural resource extraction practices.
There are some ministries and institutions in the central government that rule and manage areas and natural resources.
Area and spatial plans are basically managed by two institutions, they are, Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial/National Land Agency (NLA) that got the mandate to manage every area outside of forest region; and Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MEF) that is in charge on forest and area monitoring in the regions with forest status.
Every area in Indonesia is categoraized in one of two groups. The first group is forest region within about 124 million hectares where the regions are two third of Indonesia. The forest regions are administratively managed by MEF.
Forest regions are categorized based on the functions, such as, production forests that laid on about 69 million hectares, protected forests about 29,5 million hectares, conservation regions about 27,5 million hectares, permanent production forest about 35 million hectares, and conversed production forest for other goals about 20 million hectares.
The second group is non-forest region for other use that laid on about 64 million hectares or about one third of the land in Indonesia. This is managed by NLA.
The biggest lesson from area governance for the past decade is that many area conflicts happened among many parties because MEF has got too much authority that masters about 63 percent of land and lack of coordination between MEF and NLA
For MEF gets dominant and whole authority in forest and governance, it often published controversial regulations which were contradict to other ministries and even stopped natural resource development, such as, industrial plants and mining concession. Million hectares of area concession that got permits for plantations are still abandoned because of conflicts and dispute with what MEF regulated.
What made the issue worse is that MEF rejected to renew area use substantially and (the officials) with stubborn still applied forest region maps which have been tens of years. This stops adjustment needed to fulfill area use demands for natural resources and infrastructure development.
And with full support from President Jokowi without having checks and balances, MEF keeps acting as the superpower ministry. As the result, other ministries, such as, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, and even NLA are helpless when facing area conflicts with MEF.
From the urgent issues, it is important for the new government to prepare its cabinet to re-harmonize the authority and functions of MEF with NLA and other related ministries to facilitate better and more sustainable natural resource development that should be the same with sustainable development goal(s).
The authority on everything that has something to do with land should be managed by one ministry, which is, Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial/National Land Agency. This should be responsible to manage every area use allocation and spatial plans for the land, including forest and non-forest regions. That is why MEF should let go its authority in area governance and forest spatial.
MEF should be substituted to be Ministry of Climate Change and Environment Conservation with the main responsibility for conservation, management and protection which should be effective on the land, water, and natural conservation in conservation areas and forest protection which were stated. The ministry should be in charge to monetize carbon stock wealth through carbon trade and cimate change action implementation to get green-house gas reduction targets.
The new cabinet should have new portfolio, which is, Ministry of Natural Resource and Renewable Commodity that would be having authority to manage and cultivate industrial plant forest, including palm oil, rubber, industrial plant forest, and renewable energy, for sure.
If it is needed to smooth bureaucracy coordination among the ministries, the authority of Ministry of Natural Reosurce and Renewable Commodity should be in the first level to lead coordination among others, synchronize the policies and programs that have something to do with strategic commodities, especially palm oil.
Knowing that palm oil is significant for the economy in Indonesia and its challenges, it is essential for the new president to establish Badan Pengelola Industri Kelapa Sawit that is managed by the ministry. The agency should be in charge to create coherent policies and programs for sustainable palm oil industries that would be integrated from upstream to downstream sectors.
It is hoped that the downsizing the ministries in area and natural resources including downsizing single management in area governance and spatial plans, the agency that focuses on climate change and environment conservation, and downsizing governance in natural resource and renewable commodity(ies), the new government would mitigate area conflicts and optimize socio-economic advantages from natural resources and renewable commodity(ies) in Indonesia.
By: Edi Suhardi/Sustainable Palm Oil Analyst
