Apart from these legal acts the sustainable development discourse was also reflected in the following institutions:
First, in 1971 a special section for Nature Conservation and Wildlife Man- agement was created within the Forestry Directorate.76 On this section’s
initiative 30 conservation units (In.Balai Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam) were planned that became responsible for making inventories of the flora and fauna in the conservation areas, maintaining the borders around the areas, building and maintaining paths for patrols, and protecting the areas by means of patrols.77Their establishment was expected to take a long time. But by 1979,
only 8 of them had been established.78In 2006 their number had quadrupled,
varying in size and importance.
Second, in the aftermath of the Stockholm Conference, the Indonesian government formed a committee to design an environmental management plan. The then State Minister of Development Planning, Prof. Emil Salim, chaired this committee. In 1978, this committee was transformed into the State Ministry for the Monitoring of Development and Environment (In. Kantor Menteri Negara Pengawasan Pembangunan dan Lingkungan Hidup).79
Third, in 1974 Indonesia embarked on its first internationally funded conservation project.80This United Nations Development Programme/FAO’s
Nature Conservation and Wildlife Management Project aimed in both its
74 The full name of the act isUndang-Undang Republik Indonesia Nomor 5 Tahun 1990 tentang
Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam Hayati dan Ekosistemnyameaning ‘Act on the Conservation of Living Resources and their Ecosystems’.
75 Cf. Niessen 2003, p. 67. 76 Cribb 1988a, p. 344.
77 Eight on Java and one in each province on the Outer Islands Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-41-42.
78 These were situated in Medan, Tanjung Karang, Bogor, Malang, Banjar Baru, Palu, Kupang and Ambon Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-68.
79 Arnscheidt 2003, p. 50, cf. Wiratno et al. 2002, p. 44. 80 Veevers-Carter 1978, p. 14.
142 Sustainable development discourse under the New Order
phases (1974-78 and 1979-82) for expanding the country’s network of conserva- tion areas. It was funded partly by the Dutch branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),81an organisation which had been established in 1961 to raise
funds for conservation projects around the world and which also increasingly got involved in their implementation.82Triggered by this project the
Indonesian government already in 1975 presented at an international forum a target of reserving ten percent of its land for conservation.83Another direct
result was that in1977, the area of strict nature reserves almost tripled from 770 615 to 2 624 626 ha.84Before that, Komodo Island was designated as a
reserve in 1966.85 Statistics report furthermore, that before 1973, 131 strict
nature reserves (907 790 ha), 24 wildlife reserves (2 252 410 ha), 4 game reserves (134 550 ha) and 2 recreation parks (77 ha) were established.86How-
ever, from 1973 to 1974 the total area of strict nature reserves had been reduced from 825 790 ha to 699 440 ha arguing that many reserves, especially on Java, proved to be too small to effectively protect species from extinction.87Various
other old reserves were maintained, at least on paper.
As a consequence of the incorporation of the aspect of recreation into the new economic discourse, nature and wildlife reserves were partly redefined as areas open to touristic activities:88during the period of the second Repelita (1973-
1977), the Forestry Directorate opened 40 nature and wildlife reserves for tourism.89Then, in 1980 the Indonesian government declared the country’s
first five national parks: Gunung Leuser, Gunung Gede Pangrango, Ujung Kulon, Baluran and Komodo. Two years later, when Indonesia hosted the Third World Congress on National Parks and Conservation Areas, another eleven national parks were declared, including Pulau Seribu and Kutai.90
1982 was on the whole a year in which Indonesia protected large strands of forest area as ‘hutan lindung’91probably due to the fact that the
NCPhad been drafted a short while before and because of the above mentioned inter- national congress.
Later, in the 1990s, Indonesia embarked, as proposed in Agenda 21, on a number ofICDPs, including in Gunung Leuser, Kerinci Seblat and Siberut
that aimed to reconcile conservation with socio-economic interests of the local population in national parks. Critics have argued that these projects in many
81 Jepson 2002, p., chapter 9.
82 The international branch was founded in 1971 (Holdgate 1999, p. 79, Veevers-Carter 1978, p. 14).
83 Jepson 2002 citing Hardjosentono. 84 Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-65. 85 Cribb 1988a, p. 344.
86 Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-41. 87 Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-68. 88 Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. II-103. 89 Departemen Kehutanan 1986, p. III-65. 90 Wiratno, et al. 2004, p. 105.
Chapter 14 143
cases failed to effectively conserve the areas and mainly succeeded in pursuing development for local communities without changing their attitude towards nature.92
The fourth major institutionalisation of the dominant sustainable develop- ment discourse was Indonesia’s regular hosting of big environmental confer- ences, such as the third international congress on National Parks in Bali in 1982. The then Minister of Forestry Soedjarwo, used the congress to declare Indonesia’s first national parks and to make public the rather arbitrary govern- ment’s commitment to reserve ten percent of Indonesia’s land surface.93
According to Jepson, the congress presented a great opportunity for the govern- ment to ‘promote a conservationist image to the world.’94This explains why
the government ‘never [seems] short of money for conferences’, as Jepson quotes one of his expatriate informants.
Fifth, Indonesia started to celebrate ‘environmental day’ every year on June 5th,95on which it awarded the environmental awardKalpataru96to encourage
environmentalism, ‘chosen to show that traditional Indonesian culture shared with modern science an awareness that human prosperity depends on the natural environment.’97
Sixth, there have been efforts to revitalise so-called ‘traditional’ conservation measures including the MoluccanSasi,which is being portrayed as a traditional taboo scheme to prevent overexploitation of natural resources.98
Seventh, in 1995 a trust fund called the Kehati foundation was opened for biodiversity conservation. This fund, chaired by Emil Salim after his retirement as minister, aimed to support local and national initiatives for biodiversity conservation.
Eighth, there have been efforts to institutionalise the concept of co-manage- ment, among others in Bunaken National Park, Lore Lindu National Park and Komodo National Park (see also partIV).
As this enumeration could go on and on, I conclude that the New Order government massively institutionalised the sustainable development discourse in its various facets. This is to say that in almost all its policies it reproduced the concept.
92 See, for instance, Wells 1999.
93 Cf. Jepson who provides a good insight into why it was ten percent. Statements included ‘pragmatism’ (the more territory the more income for the conservation section), ‘they also have in mind they can change it when they want ‘, ‘high symbolic value with little cost’, and ‘completely arbitrary[,] it just sounded good’. Interestingly, according to Jepson this arbitrary percentage has consequently been adopted in the dominant international discourse on biodiversity conservation.
94 Jepson 2002, chapter 9.
95 Referring to the start of the Stockholm Conference in 1972.
96 This name is derived from the ‘”tree of wishes” from Hindu-Javanese mythology, a bountiful source of good things for humankind’ (Cribb 2003, p. 42 citing Aichele).
97 Cribb 2003, p. 42.
144 Sustainable development discourse under the New Order
14.4 DISCOURSE REPRODUCTION,TRANSFORMATION AND REJECTION
After the New Order government started to accept and reproduce the sustainable development discourse or to transform it for its own purposes, much to its own surprise, the environment became a key subject forNGOs that were striving for political change in Indonesia or that were opposing the way the government effectuated development to criticise the government’s perform- ance.99In fact, the attractiveness of this discourse for the opposition should
not have surprised the government considering that it had attracted all kinds of oppositional groups in other countries as well. The criticism of the IndonesianNGOs nevertheless had to focus on or be related to environmental issues. This explains the high acceptance of the discourse byNGOs and at the same time their preoccupancy with human rights issues.100
Criticism was in the beginning mainly linked to pollution but increasingly also to conservation issues. Generally speaking there were critics that blamed the government for not being serious enough about sustainable natural resources management or conservation, and there were critics that blamed the government for being too serious. As much of the criticism focused on government practices, it will be dealt with in part IV. In addition, at the end of the next chapter I will mention a few examples.
99 Cf. Cribb 2003, p. 43. 100 Kalland & Persoon 1998.