Having The Government Been Neglected The Supreme Court Decision for more than a year, Civil Society Coallition Grant ATR/BPN Intransparent Institution Award Trophy
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Jakarta, August 20th 2018. The Civil Society Coalition for Information Disclosure awarded the most closed state institution trophy to the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning / National Land Agency (Kementerian ATR / BPN) due to negligence of providing access to land use rights (HGU) documents to public. Access to the HGU document is very important because if not, it might lead to poor forest and land policies and governance.
A coalition consisted of Greenpeace Indonesia, Forest Watch Indonesia, Indonesian Corruption Watch, and PERDU Manokwari held a demonstration in front of the ATR / BPN office, demanding that ATR / BPN abide the Supreme Court (MA) decision, because for more than one year, ATR / BPN ignored orders MA to open palm oil HGU. The Papua Provincial Information Commission has also decided that palm oil company HGU information must be made public, after the Papua Legal Aid Institute won an information lawsuit against the Regional Office of BPN Papua.
The HGU document in question is a list of palm oil plantation permits containing information on the name of the HGU permit holder, area, location, type of commodity, as well as a map of the HGU area complete with coordinate points.
Greenpeace focuses on Kalimantan and Papua because deforestation still occured there, such as destruction of orangutan habitat and forest destruction by palm oil business companies. [1] [2]. “Stopping forest destruction and fires requires transparency of data which would help public identify which companies acting irresponsibly,” said Greenpeace Indonesia Forest Campaigner Asep Komarudin.
Agung Ady, FWI campaigner emphasized the importance of opening HGU documents. “From 2013 to 2016, there were 8.9 million hectares of overlapped land, between forestry, mining and palm oil plantation sectors, as well as customary territories. If ATR / BPN insists on closing the HGU document, it means that government agencies are taking part in slowing down the settlement of tenurial conflicts that have occurred due to overlapping land tenure. “
Law enforcement in natural resource and forest sector has not been much touched even when state losses have reached hundreds of trillions of rupiah. “More than 300 people have become suspects of corruption in natural resources in the past 7 years. This corruption includes plantation, forestry and mining sectors. The state losses by corruption in natural resources are fantastic, from seven cases alone it has resulted in state losses of 7.26 trillion rupiah. ” said Tama S Langkun, an ICW researcher.
Rapid investment on Papua Island, especially in plantation and mining sectors, somewhat bring worries to indigenous Papuans, who so far heavily depend on forests to fulfill their basic needs. “Investments without supervision and a system that is not transparent have an impact on the rate of deforestation and neglect the rights of indigenous Papuans. If the condition left unfixed, forest destruction in Papua will continue to occur,” Andreas Bernadus from the PERDU Manokwari Foundation explained.
“The closure of ATR / BPN on HGU information tarnishes the commitment of the Jokowi-JK government to prioritize the spirit of transparency or information disclosure,” concluded Asep.
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Photo link could be downloaded here: https://media.greenpeace.org/shoot/27MZIFJWTI4YL
Also Read: Prohibition of opening HGU documents
Note:
[1] Press Release Greenpeace Indonesia: More than 1000 Orangutans Threatened by Forest Destruction https://bit.ly/2N0Aacc
[2] Press Release Greenpeace Indonesia: Double the Size of Paris of Forest Destroyed by World’s Largest Palm Oil Company https://bit.ly/2NnTKjq
Media Contact:
Asep Komarudin, Greenpeace Indonesia Forest Campaigner, Tel 081310728770,
email asep.komarudin@greenpeace.org
Tama S Lankun, Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW), Tel 08119937669
Agung Adi, Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), Tel 085783517913
Andreas Bernardus Arep, PERDU Manokwari Foundation, Tel 082199866126
Rully Yuliardi, Greenpeace Indonesia Media Campaigner, Tel 08118334409,
email rully.yuliardi.achmad@greenpeace.org