ANÁLISIS Y CONCLUSIONES
5.1 APORTES PERSONALES
From the 1970s onward, the sustainable development discourse has dominated Indonesian policies and laws. Because this discourse was born out of a marriage between the three formerly distinct discourses of economic develop- ment, environmental protection and human rights protection it has remained unspecific. This, as the three cases presented in this part of the book will demonstrate, has left space for actors involved in policy- and lawmaking from 1990 to the present to try to make their specific frame dominate policies and laws.
On March 8th1990, at the start of the parliamentary debates of the Bio-
diversity Conservation Bill he was to defend, the Minister of Forestry argued that conservation in Indonesia needed to be defined as a subcategory of development:
‘As already determined in the Broad Guidelines of State Policy the potential of natural resources and their ecosystems forms part of the basic capital for the continuing national development […]. Therefore, the management of nature reserves and conservation areas needs to be directed in such a way that conservation is not only for the sake of conservation but in the interest of the people.’
With this plea, the Minister contested the environmental frame. His primary concern was not environmental or nature protection, but ‘the people’. As we will see later, this he translated in terms of ‘economic growth’.
Nearly a decade later, at a national co-ordination meeting about future policies organised by the Ministry for the Environment, an official from Bali’s environmental impact management agency noted that the sectoral departments were not the right institutions to implement environmental policies because their main objectives were development oriented:
‘The Environmental Management Act of 1997 has regulated that the sectoral depart- ments are responsible for the implementation of environmental policies. At the same time these departments have to issue licenses for the exploitation of natural resources. We need a strong environmental department.’
This plea, which reflected the dominant frame of the meeting, aimed at a stronger institutionalising of the environmental frame at the expense of the
172 Introduction
dominant development (i.e. economic growth) frame of the New Order’s
pembangunandiscourse.1
Another three and a half years later, a coalition of actors had emerged that argued in favour of a Natural Resources Management Act. In the opinion of this coalition
‘the centralist regulations in the field of natural resources management so far neither protect the sustainability of natural resources and the environment nor give suffi- cient space for access, interests and rights ofadatcommunities for the control, exploitation and management of natural resources.’2
The coalition propagated that not only the environmental frame but also a specific adat human rights frame should replace the present emphasis of economic growth.
These quotes from different actors very much reflect the discourses actors in the three cases of policy- and lawmaking, presented in this part of the book, used to convince their rivals. At the centre of the analysis is how various actors at certain points in time have struggled to make their version of nature con- servation policy and law dominant in Indonesia. Apart from providing insight into the stories, arguments and strategies of actors it will show that especially practices belonging to thepembangunandiscourse have dominated law- and policymaking during the last two decades in Indonesia and influenced – and often prevented – the debate of nature conservation.
Understanding the debate and lawmaking practices of the New Order regime is the basis for understanding the most important Indonesian conserva- tion act and how it works in, for instance, national parks. Gaining insight into the dynamics and practices that developed in the law- and policymaking arena at the beginning ofReformasicreates insight into the continuity and change of New Order discursive structures and practices that influence the debate of nature conservation in Indonesia.
The three cases have been chosen for their relevance in the field of nature conservation in Indonesia. The Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1990 forms the legal basis for species protection and all Indonesian conservation activities concerning protected areas. It provides the basis for, among others, all national parks in Indonesia. The 1999 environmental co-ordination meeting was one of the first meetings initiated by the government and designed to bring together bureaucrats,NGOs, and academics after the fall of the New Order. Its result formed the input for the People’s Congress’ discussions on the
1 ‘Development’ was no Indonesian invention, of course. Rather, it was a discourse that after
the Second World War gained worldwide dominance with the increasing decolonisation. See, for instance, Heady 1996. The general consequences of this dominance for law are described in Allott 1980.
2 Draft for the Academic Background Paper for the Natural Resources Management Bill,
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environmental paragraph of the Broad Guidelines of State Policy of 1999. Part of it was directly related to the future of nature conservation policy. The result of the third process described here, finally, is a draft for a new act that not so much focuses on protected areas but advocates a radical change of Indo- nesia’s natural resources policy and law in general. As it still needs to be debated in Parliament the relevance for the future of protected areas and all other conservation issues is not yet clear. A final political decision has to be reached.
In addition to being highly relevant for the course of nature conservation in Indonesia, the cases are representative for the debate about nature conserva- tion that has taken place at the three points in time discussed. As indicated by the quotes at the beginning of this introduction they show a clear shift from a debate dominated by a centralist developmentalist discourse via a more centralist environmentalist discourse towards a deadlocked debate between actors with a decentralised environmentalist frame with attention to human rights and justice and actors with a centralist developmentalist frame. This shift was catalysed byReformasi, a discourse enabling environmentalists and human rights activists to more openly enter the political arena.
What makes the comparison of the three cases all the more interesting is that the interpretation and debate of some of the issues that were raised during all three debates stayed the same, while others changed over time. Of special importance in terms of change is the issue of participation. Not only the interpretation of this concept has evolved throughout time but also its institutionalisation in policy- and lawmaking itself.
The focus of all three case studies has been on analysing arguments and strategies of the actors involved. In the first case this has been done on the basis of the minutes of the parliamentary debates on the Biodiversity Conserva- tion Act. This made it possible to analyse the whole debate in all its details, except for shorter and longer lobby sessions ofMPs and the Minister of Forestry inside and outside Parliament. In the second case, observations and taping of parts of the discussions that occurred during the three day co-ordination meeting as well as informal conversations with participants have formed the basis of the analysis. The third case, finally, has been analysed on the basis of various documents, including position papers and documentation material of the public consultation process, as well as summarizing minutes of inter- departmental meetings and a number of interviews with key resource persons. As the three quotes at the beginning indicate the stories and arguments used in all three cases will tell us much about how various actors have conceptualised sustainable development. The analysis will also show how actors made sense of policy and law and the processes that preceded them.