Global and local perspectives on Indonesia's environmental problems and the role of NGOs, Bijdragen...

F. ColombijnGlobal and local perspectives on Indonesia's environmental problems and the role of NGO's In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Globalization, localization and Indonesia 154(1998), no: 2, Leiden, 305-334

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FREEK COLOMBIJN

Global and Local Perspectives onIndonesia's Environmental Problems

and the Role of NGOs

Globalization of societal processes is most easily observed in the relationbetween people and their environment.1 Damage to the ozone layer, mostlycaused by emissions in the North, has local consequences in Indonesia.Global warming may result in the flooding of Indonesian coastal cities andthe rice-producing regions of northern Java. Supertankers transporting oilfrom the Gulf to Japan are a potential threat for Indonesia's marine andcoastal ecosystems. On the other hand, local events have repercussions forother countries. Smoke from the 1991 and 1994 forest fires in Sumatra andKalimantan, for instance, troubled Malaysia and Singapore. Loggingpractices in Indonesia dramatically reduce the world's biodiversity andmay alter patterns of rainfall.

Economic activity implies man-environment interaction. Since theestablishment of the New Order government, Indonesia has experiencedspectacular economic growth: an average of 8 percent per year during the1970s and 5.3 percent during the 1980s. The proportion of people livingbelow the poverty line fell from 60 percent in 1970 to an estimated 15percent at the beginning of the 1990s (World Bank 1994:4-5). This growthhas had severe ecological consequences. Today almost every conceivableform of environmental stress is to be found in Indonesia. The World Bank(1994:27) lists the following five issues as most urgent: water supply andsanitation, solid waste management and vehicle emissions (all in thecities), industrial pollution control (particularly on Java) and forestmanagement in the outer islands.

Continued economic growth is deemed desirable in order to raise thestandard of living of Indonesia's remaining 27 million poor and to meet atleast some of the rising expectations of the more prosperous. Economicdevelopment is one of the New Order's basic values, not to be questioned. Inview of the present dynamic economy, economic expansion is not onlydesirable but seems certain, which makes greater strain on the environmentinevitable. This raises the question whether the ecological basis of the

1 This article has profited greatly from the critical eye of Han Knapen concerning thecontent and from the red pencil of Nancy Forest with regard to the English text. The authoralone remains responsible for the end product. Research for this article was completed inDecember 1995.

BKI154-H (1998)

306 Freek Colombijn

country can maintain the economic growth. The catchword in Indonesianpolitics is now sustainable development (pembangunan berkelanjutan),meaning, in the words of the Brundtland Commission, a development that'meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs' (Salim 1991; World Commission1987:8).

In reality, neither the global population nor the Indonesian population' as a whole feel responsible for their present citizens, let alone for futuregenerations. Disregard for the environmental consequences of humanbehaviour is evident in both the use of natural resources (renewable andnon-renewable) and the disposal of waste: what man takes from nature andreturns to it. The use of scarce resources and the disposal of waste are, ofcourse, two sides of the same coin, for one person's waste can pollute some-one else's vital resource. This neglect of possible detrimental environ-mental effects is the cause of the 'tragedy of the commons', a popularphrase meaning that where people use a common resource, each rationalindividual tends to overexploit that resource because he or she has the fullbenefit of his or her selfish behaviour while suffering only a small frac-tion of the negative consequences, which are spread out thinly over allusers. The tragedy is that since each individual makes the same calcu-lation, in the end everybody has to bear the full brunt of the sum ofnegative consequences (Hardin 1968).

In daily life, not everybody has equal access to the commons. The use ofnatural resources takes place within production relationships and there-fore within power relationships. Conflicts can easily arise over the use ofscarce natural resources such as fertile land, fuel, clean water and wood.Some conflicts take place on an international scale. Indonesia and fiveother states, for example, are disputing access to the Spratly Islands in theChinese South Sea for the oil and gas deposits and fishing grounds. Envir-onmental conflicts that take place within Indonesia's borders involveforeign parties along with national and local interest groups. As far aswaste is concerned, the basic attitude is not competition but neglect. Manypeople are satisfied to dispose of their rubbish in an easy way, as long asthey themselves are not troubled by it; this attitude of denial and neglectis called nimby-ism (not-in-my-back-yard).

When we focus on the Indonesian people themselves, a key sociologicalquestion in the study of environmental conflicts is who stands to gain andwho stands to lose from environmental degradation. Hardly any group willprofit from environmental degradation itself, and I assume that nobodypromotes it deliberately. On the other hand, everybody suffers from adisturbed ecosystem, and there are several environmental problems thataffect people regardless of class, gender or other status distinctions. Boththe poor and the rich, for example, will be equally troubled by the hole inthe ozone layer. Many environmental problems, however, are not that

Global and Local Perspectives 307

democratic. The rich can often mitigate detrimental effects by adoptingcostly solutions. For instance, while many kampung dwellers have noaccess to clean water, more prosperous people can afford to buy bottledwater and are protected from water-borne diseases. Rich and poor differnot only in their losses due to environmental damage, but also in theirstakes in the behaviour that happens to be ecologically unsound. Theowner of a Toyota Kijang and the barefoot pedestrian are both annoyed byJakarta's polluted air, but for the proud motorist it will be a greatersacrifice to comply with car-pool regulations. In sum, I hypothesize thatthe upper socio-economic groups will display more nimbyism, and thelower groups will be more prepared to take environmental action.

The tragedy of the commons implies that environmental action can onlybe undertaken at a supra-individual level. I see four potential collectiveactors: adat communities, international bodies, the state, and non-govern-mental organizations (NGOs). Adat communities, with their face-to-facecontacts, have long managed commons by forms of social control and super-natural sanctions, which are vaguely reminiscent of the 'mutual coercion'called for by Hardin (1968:1247). However, adat rules are being eroded bycompeting normative systems, no adat is shared by the growing ethnicallymixed urban populations, and current environmental problems transgressthe boundaries of adat communities. For these three reasons I discard adatas a complete solution, although adat can help preserve nature on a locallevel. International organizations and the state both play an importantrole, but are hampered by diverse and competing interests. Coalitions oflocal and global NGOs could have great leverage on corporate and govern-mental policy, but somehow their power does not wholly materialize.With the sustainability of society at stake and hopes set on NGOs to raiseecological awareness and to push through conservation measures, it issurprising that the NGOs cannot put their potential to full use. The reasonfor the somewhat thorny cooperation among global, national and localNGOs can be found in their diverging views of environmental priorities.

In this article I attempt to analyse which actors, on whatever societallevel, are trying to protect Indonesia's ecosystem, but this cannot be donewithout first examining the basic environmental problems. Therefore abrief overview of these environmental problems is provided in the firstsection. In the subsequent sections I will discuss those actors that step intothe breach on behalf of the environment. In these sections I narrow theanalysis down to the Indonesian NGOs after discussing the internationaldiplomatic scene and the national state, which provide the contexts inwhich the NGOs must work.2

2 I found it necessary to collect new data, especially for the discussion of the NGOs.Interviews were held in Indonesia with four representatives of different Jakarta-based NGOs,one official from a local office of WWF, two top officials of the Ministry of the Environmentand Bapedal (the Environmental Impact Management Agency), one member of parliament

308 Freek Colombijn

The main theme of the article is globalization. 'Globalization' hasacquired a variety of meanings, with varying degrees of precision (Robert-son 1990). Three aspects of globalization relevant to this article can bedistilled from David Harvey (1990:240). The first aspect is the inter-dependency of ecosystems across the globe. The second aspect is the inte-gration of the world economy, which leads to international actors exploit-ing local resources in Indonesia. The third aspect, perhaps the most inter-esting one, is the 'time-space compression', in which the time horizonshortens and space seems to shrink to the 'global village' of telecom-munications. The time-space compression forms the technical prerequisitefor the emergence of 'ideoscapes', the flow of political images which haveto do with the ideologies of states or with counterideologies - the greenmovement, for instance. The spread of concepts like 'biodiversity', 'sustain-able development', or 'nature' involves problems of translation becausethese concepts take on various meanings in different local contexts(Appadurai 1990:299-300; Schefold 1988). Put simply, the tiger in thatbeautiful WWF calender looks quite different from the animal that carriesoff a goat from under your house.

Environmental problems

I treat environmental problems in the narrow sense of ecological degrada-tion and will not go into the matter of differential access to naturalresources or the lack of resources in absolute terms.3 For our purpose it isuseful to distinguish four categories of human-induced environmental prob-lems, each of them affected in a different way by globalization: popula-tion growth and consumption patterns, the commercial exploitation ofnatural resources, industrialization and the dumping of waste. In additionto human interference, nature itself also disturbs ecosystems by seismicactivity and autogenetic climatic change. No matter how one looks at it, itis plain that the ecology of Indonesia is under siege (Table 1).

Ignoring a host of antecedent, intervening, and distortion factors (Rosen-berg 1968:54-104), population growth is nevertheless undeniably an im-portant cause of environmental degradation. Demographic pressure forcespeople to clear forests for agricultural land in order to meet subsistenceneeds. In Indonesia accelerated population growth started in the nine-teenth century. Global factors such as smallpox vaccination, better under-

(from the commission for the environment), and one staff member of the Dutch embassy. Forpractical reasons interviews with foreign counterparts were restricted to the Netherlands.Interviews were held with representatives of Greenpeace, NOVIB, INFID, IUCN (twopersons), WWF, the European branch office of an Indonesian NGO and the Dutch Ministry ofForeign Affairs.3 This narrow interpretation of environmental problems is in fact typical of a northernperspective and shows that this article about global and local views has a strong northern bias(see Aditjondro 1990).

r Global and Local Perspectives 309

standing of sanitation, agricultural science and law and order imposed byan imperialistic power all played a role in Indonesia. The populationgrowth has been partly countered by another global trend, that of familyplanning.

Table 1. Indicators of environmental stress

Indicators

Population size (x 1000)1

Population density on Java/Madura (persons/km^)1

Urbanization1

Population Jakarta (x 1000)1

Passenger cars (x 1000)All motorized vehicles (x 1000)Domestic and international air

passengers (x 1000)2

Production of crude oil(x 1000 barrel)3

Production of electricity(x 1000 MWh)2

Production of timber(x 1000 m3)2-4

1930

60.727

3166.7 %

5335888

14

40.929

210

1.384

Absolute figures1970

119.208

57617.3 %4.579

239805

829

311.552

2.084

10.899

1990

178.631

81430.9 %

8.2591.3098.863

10.991

533.707

35.303

28.537

1930

51

5539122411

2

13

10

12

Index1970

100

100100100100100

100

100

100

100

1990

150

141179180548

1.101

1326

171

1694

2621 Figures for 1930, 1971 and 1990.2 The figure of 1990 includes East Timor.3 Production of 1930 is given in the source as 5,531 thousand metric tons; a specific

gravity of 0.85 has been assumed in calculating the production in barrels.4 Figures for 1930, 1973, 1990; figures exclude Irian Jaya; the figure of 1990

excludes the production of 7,068 thousand m3 of plywood.

Source: Biro Pusat Statistik 1976, 1994; Centraal Kantoor voor de Statistiek 1931;Departement van Economische Zaken 1936; Knaap 1989; World Bank 1994.

Not only is population size important/but consumption levels should alsobe taken into account when people begin consuming more than their basicsubsistence needs. Globalization becomes plainly visible in the adoption ofthe negative aspects of northern consumption patterns. One aspect of thewesternization of the Indonesian middle class is the adoption of environ-mental rhetoric. Wealth leads to wasteful practices, but poverty, apartfrom being a major cause of population growth, certainly does so as well.Poverty both stems from and results in unequal access to resources. The poorare forced to overexploit a resource that is too scarce to support them(Miriisterie van Buitenlandse Zaken 1993:47; World Commission 1987:106).The indifferent consumer's attitude towards nature shown by urbanites, andsometimes by peasants, contrasts sharply with the culture of tribal peoplewho are literally closer to nature (Schefold 1988).

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The role of globalization in Indonesia's ecological changes is moreprominent in the commercial exploitation of certain resources for the worldmarket through plantations, forestry, mining, fishery and tourism. Indo-nesia has some unique local resources (soil, climate, plant and animalspecies) to satisfy the demand from industrialized countries. Indonesianproducts were shipped directly to China and India in pre-colonial times,and demand for Indonesia's products increased when European ships sailedto the Archipelago. Products were not only cultivated, but also collectedand hunted (benzoin, wax, camphor, rhinoceros horn, feathers of birds ofparadise and many more). A new phase set in around 1870 with the estab-lishment of very large coffee, tobacco and rubber plantations, run bywestern capital. Exploitation of mineral resources is a somewhat differentstory, because these resources are by definition non-renewable. Aside fromshrinking mineral reserves, such exploitation has wider consequences, aswhen wood is used for fuel or mine shaft construction, and virgin forests areopened up by oil companies for the building of roads.

The type of natural resource exploitation with the biggest impact todayis forestry. Around 1990, the rate of deforestation was estimated to be inthe range of 0.6 to 1.3 million ha per year (World Bank 1994:52). Manyauthors note other causes of deforestation in addition to logging.4 Discus-sions flared up during the big forest fires of 1982-1983, 1991 and 1994,related to shifting cultivators, spontaneous migrants, transmigration andthe El-Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

In the secondary sector, foreign and domestic investors profit from lowwages, for instance in the textile industry. The shift of industrial pro-duction to low-wage countries is, of course, a global phenomenon as well.Indonesia can expect that some footloose industry will move on to otherplaces as soon as wages rise. The lax enforcement of environmental legisla-tion is an additional reason for some nimbyist foreign investors to come toIndonesia. The most prominent example is probably the Inalum aluminiumplant and hydroelectric dam, which was built on the Asahan River afterthe project had been vetoed in Okinawa, Japan. Foreign investors often usediscarded labour-intensive machinery that is no longer profitable indeveloped countries. Such old machines are usually more polluting thanmodern equipment and may have even been forbidden in the country oforigin. A positive sign is that many multinational firms have adoptedenvironmental standards wherever their factories are located, and pressauthorities to apply the same standards to domestic firms to obtain a'level playing field" (Environesia June 1989; World Bank 1994:139, 156).

The most literal form of nimbyism, and a clear consequence of globaliz-ation, is when industrialized countries use developing countries as dumping

4 See Dauvergne 1993-94:508-11; Dove 1988:16-7; Down to Earth November 1991; InsideIndonesia December 1994; Potter 1993; Smith 1992; Setiakawan January-June 1992; WALHI1992:12-21; Wirawan 1993.


site for their pollutants. This includes not only industrial wastes, but alsothe dumping of medicines and pesticides banned as unsafe in industrializedcountries, and the illegal cleaning of tankers on the high seas. Since theBasel Convention went into effect in 1992, the transboundary movement ofhazardous wastes to developing countries for final disposal has beenillegal. It seems nevertheless likely that export to developing countrieswill continue. The costs of processing wastes in the North are many timesthose paid in the South, so that it is very profitable for waste-disposalcompanies to receive payment in the North for treating waste, and thenship the waste to a developing country, where it is processed at lower cost,or not at all (Porter and Brown 1996:84-8; Environesia April-June 1993;SKEPHI 1994:143-55). This transfer is only possible if someone in Indonesiais prepared to receive the pollutants. Reported cases in Indonesia are prob-ably the tip of the iceberg {Environesia December 1990; Tempo 10-3-1990,5-12-1992).

In sum, it can be concluded that foreign economic powers claim a dis-proportionate share of Indonesia's environmental resources. It must beunderscored that Indonesia is no defenceless victim, and that members ofthe elite have cooperated since the days of the VOC. Both the governmentand local entrepreneurs have been eager to sell out Indonesia's resourceswith a great show of nimbyism. What is more, Indonesian forestry com-panies have started to log in Cambodia and Surinam, and Indonesiaexports some of its own wastes. For instance fatty oil contaminated withcopper and chrome is sent to China and Australia (Gatra 11-2-1995;Jakarta Post 1-9-1995). It also seems that Indonesia now exports its ownproduction of pesticides that are prohibited in the Archipelago to otherdeveloping countries like Vietnam. Globalization has thus come full circle,and the exploited people have become the exploiters.

Environmental protection

It is reassuring that in the face of so many threats, a number of people havestepped into the breach on nature's behalf. In Indonesia there is no massmovement like the green lobby in the North. The group of people thatdefend the environment breaks down into the direct victims of ecologicaldegradation and a mixed group of professionals in the government, consult-ancies, environmental study centres of universities and NGOs. Rather thandeny environmental problems like so many of the nimbyists, these pro-fessionals claim them because they find it profitable to do so. I call thempimfy-ists (please-in-my-front-yard).5 Although the composition of the

5 'Front yard' is not part of the lexicon, but the phrase nicely expresses the idea that, unlikenimbyists, pimfyists have an interest in putting environmental issues on display. It may becynical to consider financial gain a driving force for people campaigning for environmentalprotection, but it is comforting that money can be made from pimfyism. The concept of pirn-

312 Freek Colombijn

group of green activists in Indonesia differs from the movement in theNorth, Indonesia forms part of a global wave.

Not all the human-induced ecological change mentioned so far is con-sidered a social problem. A latent problematic situation that may alreadyhave been deemed critical by an insightful outside observer only becomes amanifest social problem after it has been defined as such. This approach tosocial problems is known as 'constructivism' (Galjart 1988). When a sig-nificant part of the population demands administrative action, a socialproblem becomes a political item. At least seven actors can be identifiedthat can put ecological issues on Indonesia's political agenda: inter-national organizations and donors; the state itself; international greenNGOs; national green NGOs; the victims, often organized in local NGOs;the press; and scientists. We will see that the first two actors, internation-al institutions and the state, react primarily to pressure from the greenlobby. While they certainly put their own spin on the views of others, it isunlikely that they will define a social problem on their own initiative.The press is of course influential, but, apart from some investigativejournalism, it depends on press releases from other actors.6 Like the press,scientists may point out problems and lend support to other actors, but theyare unlikely to take a leading role themselves. This leaves us withinternational, national and local NGOs as the main initiators for politicalagenda building. In the following sections I will first discuss globalenvironmental politics (UN conferences, international agreements andforeign official development aid), then go on to the Indonesian state, andconclude with the role of NGOs.

Global environmental politics

The globalization of environmental concerns, or, to put it differently, thedefinition of environmental issues on a global scale, took place in threesteps. First people perceived separate environmental problems, then theynoticed the similarities of problems in different places, and finally theydiscovered the global interrelatedness of environmental issues. Since then,green issues have formed a global ideoscape. These steps were only takenas a result of other globalizing phenomena: progress in scientific research,growth in personal mobility, spread of mass media and development ofinternational organizations (McCormick 1989:1).

Conservation ideology has its roots in hundreds of Victorian nature

fyist does not rule out sincere environmental worries as motivation for greenies. The author,incidentally, is also a pimfyist.6 It is significant that the press has adopted environmental issues as an entry for discussingsensitive topics such as social justice and the functioning of the government. In 1995, forinstance, Kompas published environmental articles with an average frequency of four a day. Itmentioned culpable officials below the rank of president or minister by name. The Indonesianstate television does not discuss ecological issues.


societies. In colonial Indonesia this resulted in the Nederlandsch-IndischeNatuurhistorische Vereeniging (Netherlands Indies Society for NaturalHistory), founded in 1911 (Boomgaard 1993:308). Environmental protectionencompasses more than nature conservation. The first ecological concernsafter the Second World War were about the relationship between popula-tion growth and resource depletion. The United Nations and other inter-national bodies saw development as the way to eradicate poverty andfamine. In 1948 the International Union for the Protection of Nature wasfounded, a unique hybrid of governments and NGOs. Eight years later theunion was renamed International Union for the Conservation of Nature andNatural Resources (IUCN), reflecting the expanding knowledge of ecologyand a broadening of interest. Likewise, WWF, founded in 1961 as anorganization for wildlife protection, became interested in wider policyissues and changed the full form of its acronym to World Wide Fund forNature. Meanwhile, during the 1960s, environmentalism in the Westevolved into a mass movement that believed not only wildlife but alsohuman survival itself was at stake. The trend among new NGOs was awayfrom charity for limited issues of nature protection towards politicalactivism for wider environmental questions. Some NGOs learned to operateat the supranational level. Friends of the Earth (founded in 1969) andGreenpeace (1970) have from the outset been overtly activist and inter-national. Friends of the Earth is a confederation of national, independentaffiliates, whereas Greenpeace is tightly organized at a central level.This western environmentalism was, however, still parochial in itspriorities, mainly concerned with nuclear tests and oil pollution fromaccidents with tankers. Under such influences as the report of the Club ofRome, The Limits to Growth, more and more people in the West started toquestion the desirability of further economic growth (McCormick 1989;Porter and Brown 1996).

The UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in1972, was the first time the global environment was discussed at anintergovernmental forum with major input from developing countries. Theyused their numerical power to discard the no-growth option of westernenvironmentalists and firmly established their view that developmentmust proceed. From the outset, developing countries managed to broadenthe agenda of the conference to include desertification, soil loss, tropicalecosystem management and water supply. Another important feature ofthe Stockholm Conference was the presence of hundreds of NGOs at aseparate forum, even though they had little influence (McCormick1989:88-105). The line taken at Stockholm was seconded by the WorldCommission on Environment and Development, set up by the UN. Thereport of this 'Brundtland Commission', Our Common Future, stressed thatdevelopment and environment were inextricably related, that environ-mental policy was still being wrongly accorded a status secondary to

314 Freek Colombijn

established interests, and that the boundaries between local, national andinternational issues had become blurred (World Commission 1987).7

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED, or 'Earth Summit1), held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, was a dis-appointment to many. The Declaration of Rio contains no fresh ideas, andAgenda 21, 800 pages of non-binding recommendations for the comingcentury, reads like a catalogue of vested economic and political interests.Women's organizations, NGOs in general, indigenous peoples and trans-national corporations all managed to have chapters of Agenda 21 devotedto them. Recommendations included the transfer of northern capital andtechnology to developing countries, free trade and a greater role for trans-nationals. Notable for its absence from the conference agenda were atomicpower and the atmospheric impact of fossil fuels. An unprecedented 1,400NGOs were present, but they were relegated to a separate forum. Theirpresence legitimized the national governments, which spouted a greatdeal of earth-friendly rhetoric to placate pressure groups at home. TheWorld Bank and others from the development lobby successfully attractednew funds (McCoy and McCully 1994; Porter and Brown 1996:115-29).

Indonesia participated in both UN conferences. There was a ten-memberIndonesian NGO delegation at Rio. The top priority for the Indonesian andMalaysian governments at UNCED was to avoid any restrictions on thefreedom to exploit their forests. They denied that forests are a globalcommon, and together these two states were strong enough to block theformulation of a new international regime. Developed countries regardedthe final text on forestry as worse than no declaration at all, and Friends ofthe Earth and Greenpeace condemned the forestry principles of Agenda 21as a 'chain-saw decision1. In the wake of the Earth Summit, PresidentSoeharto proclaimed 1993 as the Year of the Environment for Indonesia(Inside Indonesia June 1993; McCoy and McCully 1994:115; Porter and Brown1996:117, 124-6). The billboards that brought notice of the Year of theEnvironment to the general public displayed popular threatened species(rhinoceros, birds of paradise, rafflesia) but avoided logging, trafficcongestion, industrial pollution and other socio-economic issues.

Apart from these mammoth conferences, a whole range of internationalagreements have been negotiated over the years. Some of these are highlyrelevant for Indonesia. Examples are the Convention on Climatic Changeand the Convention on Biodiversity, both signed at the Earth Summit, andthe Basel Convention on the Trade of Toxic Waste (Porter and Brown 1996:84-99). Indonesia showed its formal commitment to these agreements byhosting the second Conference of Parties for the Convention of Biodiversityin 1995 (Conservation Indonesia October-December 1995). Developing coun-tries have viewed many of the negotiations on ozone depletion, climatic

7 Emil Salim, the first Indonesian Minister for the Environment, was one of the 23 membersof the Brundtland Commission.


change and biodiversity as a northern agenda and fear high costs of en-vironmental protection. They condemn environmental prerequisites intrade regulations as a barrier to their exports and an improper way toprotect northern business interests (Porter and Brown 1996:111,130-1; Seda1993:1-2).

The toilsome discussion about eco-labelling of tropical wood is symp-tomatic of Indonesia's fear that measures pressed by the North will im-pinge on its sovereignty. Austria was forced to drop a unilateral mandatorylabelling scheme of tropical timber and a new 70 percent customs duty ontropical timber imports after Indonesia and Malaysia attacked thesemeasures at a GATT meeting in November 1992, and other ASEAN statesagreed to boycott Austrian products. So eco-labelling can only succeed withbilateral or multilateral agreements. However, the International TropicalTimber Organization (ITTO), which unites producing and consuming statesand forms the ideal forum to decide on certification, has proved to beshort-sighted. Producers in ITTO have protected their freedom of action,and Japan, as the most powerful consumer in ITTO, wants to maintain itsaccess to cheap tropical timber. Nevertheless, Indonesia now appears toaccept the inevitability of consumer-driven certification, but insists on arole in determining standards. The alternative may be a total import banin northern countries that would impose the costs of environmental pro-tection on Indonesia, while conferring to the North the benefits of forestconservation (Porter and Brown 1996:135-9; Seda 1993:29-33).8

The most direct impact global environmental politics has had on Indo-nesia is through loans and technical assistance from multilateral develop-ment banks or bilateral development cooperation. In the multilateraldevelopment banks, voting is weighted according to the size of a country'scontributions; the US has the largest vote in the World Bank and Japan inthe Asian Development Bank. For a long time the World Bank assessedprojects on the basis of economic returns, while discounting long-termunquantifiable social and ecological costs. Environmentalists are scepticalabout the multilateral development banks because they favour large-scaleprojects like multi-purpose dams, which by their sheer size have far-reaching consequences for nature. The same is true for much bilateral aid.

World Bank loans for Indonesia's transmigration programme were anissue that triggered opposition to the bank's operations.9 The World Bank

8 Whereas the threat of an import ban is effective, imposing trade restrictions may becounter-productive. The decline in export would reduce the value of the standing stock,remove an incentive to protect the forests, and lead to the conversion of forests to other uses.Loggers could increase output to compensate for the income loss caused by a price fall and,with lower prices, could easily find more demand on the domestic market (Seda 1993:34; Smith1992:36).9 The Kedung Ombo Dam, which replaced 23,000 people in Central Java, was another loanthat, after heavy opposition, made the bank adjust its project evaluation procedures. SinceKedung Ombo was more a social than an environmental problem, I have left it out of thediscussion.

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supported Indonesia's transmigration programme with a series of loansthat by 1984 totalled US$ 600 million. The ecological impacts were heavydeforestation, loss of top-soil, and acidification of wetlands; a negativesocial effect was that original occupants were driven away and given un-fair compensation for their land. The ecological damage was exacerbatedby the government's insistence on sawah cultivation, which is inappro-priate for most ecosystems found in Indonesia's outer islands. In the mid-1980s, Friends of the Earth focused its campaign against the World Bankon Indonesia's transmigration project, and a coalition of mainly AmericanNGOs lobbied members of the US Congress. The US Congress then urged theWorld Bank to incorporate environmental concerns systematically in itscost-benefit analyses. Further pressure from Japanese, Australian, Britishand other European NGOs provided the necessary leverage. As part of ageneral policy shift towards greater ecological accountability, the WorldBank decided in 1987 to restrict further loans to the consolidation ofexisting transmigration sites. This, on top of the increasing difficulty infinding 'empty land', effectively ended the official transmigration pro-gramme (Dauvergne 1993-94:511-2; Porter and Brown 1996:47; Seda 1993:7-11). In the case of the international NGO lobby at the World Bank againstthe transmigration programme, the 'links of these northern NGOs fwithIndonesian NGOs were not very strong' (Van Tuijl and Witjes 1993:211).The initiative to halt the transmigration programme was clearly to befound abroad.

The World Bank has been the opinion leader for regional developmentbanks (McCoy and McCully 1994:154). The Asian Development Bank(ADB) claims that environmental concerns are now part of the lendingcycle from the start, and laments at having little funding available forAgenda 21 (Asian Development Bank 1994:3-13). Indonesia, the ADB'sbiggest borrower, gets support for sewerage and water supply in majorcities, forest protection in Flores and Siberut, upland farms and theEnvironmental Impact Management Agency Bapedal. The Indonesian NGOWALHI is critical of both the ADB and the Japanese government because,contrary to ADB's claims, the ADB and the Japanese government haveignored green concerns and are not as prepared to ask for NGO opinions asthe World Bank, USAID or European development agencies are. A South-North coalition of NGOs has lobbied the ADB for greater transparencyand public accountability, better access to information, and more attentionto environmental and social impact (Smith 1992:31; Yen Aid WatchSeptember 1995).

Some people argue that not only have loans been used for ecologicallydamaging activities, a 'mere' technical matter, but that the debts them-selves are the main cause of ecological havoc. Following this line ofreasoning, Indonesia is forced to sell out its forests to repay its debts.Furthermore, the shift of resources from domestic consumption to the export


sector drives peasants to marginal, ecologically vulnerable land (Dau-vergne 1993-94:501; Korten and Quizon 1995:148-52; Porter and Brown 1996:48; Smith 1992:33; compare World Bank 1994:105). Common sense, I think,dictates that Indonesia should pay its debts with the profit on the initialinvestment without squandering its natural resources. A macro-economicanalysis into why some loans do not pay for themselves is, however,beyond the scope of this article.

The role of the national government

There are powerful forces in the government that pursue their own aimswith a nimbyist attitude. The Ministry for Industry and the CapitalInvestment Coordinating Board (Badan Koordinasi Penanaman Modal,BKPM) issue licences to new polluting industries in order to meet industrialgrowth targets set in national five-year development plans. Competingprovincial or municipal administrations ignore ecological risks in their bidfor new investors or transmigrants. Conservation and catchment areas aresacrificed for short-term gains and have literally lost ground to loggingconcessions, transmigration sites and an army training area. Amidst somany nimbyists, there are also a few pimfyists in the government, prim-arily in the Ministry for the Environment.

The first Minister for the Environment (Menteri Lingkungan Hidiip) wasappointed in Indonesia in 1978.10 The Stockholm Conference had been astimulus for the appointment. Since there was little evidence of greatenvironmental concern in Indonesia at that time, it is more likely that theministry was formed to make a good impression on worried foreign donorsthan to develop a really new policy. The new ministry received donorsupport from the World Bank, UNDP and CIDA (MacAndrews 1994:87;McCormick 1989:125). According to George Aditjondro (interviewed inInside Indonesia December 1994), the ministry was founded as an attemptto calm down the 1978 student protests. Students1 sentiments against large,often foreign, corporations were channelled into the new, harmless play-ground of environmentalism. The low cabinet rank of Emil Salim, the firstMinister for the Environment, was shown by his position as a Minister ofState without a department. The Minister's focus has been on pollution,since deforestation and nature conservation are primarily the responsibil-ity of the Minister of Forestry.

Despite his limited means, the flamboyant Emil Salim has contributedgreatly to putting the environmental issue on the government agenda. Partof Emil Salim's success is his argument that the North was responsible formany ecological problems in Indonesia. In this way he has counteractedthe feeling that environmentalism was a form of northern imperialism im-

10 Until 1993, the Minister for the Environment also had population affairs in his portfolio.

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pinging on Indonesia's sovereignty. He also confirmed the central govern-ment's principle that economic development is a basic axiom not to bequestioned. A powerful reason for the enthusiastic espousal of environ-mental protection by the bureaucracy is that it sees here a welcome tool toconfirm its own social usefulness in the face of strong arguments for dere-gulation of the economy (Cribb 1990:1128-31; Aditjondro in Inside IndonesiaDecember 1994; Salim 1991; Smith 1992:24)."

Indonesia's legal apparatus for dealing with pollution was initiallylimited to the colonial Nuisance Ordinance (Hinderordonnantie) of 1926.This did not stipulate acceptable levels of pollution and was thereforedifficult to enforce. A new Basic Environmental Management Act (Undang-Undang 4, 1982 tentang Ketentuan-Ketentuan Pokok Pengelolaan Ling-kungan Hidup) laid out broad policies, but still did not set standards. Sub-sequent regulations were and still are necessary to make this lawoperational. One of the most important elaborations has been the intro-duction of environmental impact analysis (Peraturan Pemerintah 29, 1986tentang Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan, Amdal) for all plannedactivity with a potential for profoundly affecting the natural environ-ment. Amdal is a procedure involving several steps, including an evalu-ation by an expert committee. The final outcome of an Amdal proceduremay be the refusal to allow a proposed project to be carried out at theselected site. One problem is that the legal apparatus lacks the experienceof handling environmental cases (MacAndrews 1994; Nurdu'a andSudharsono 1993; World Bank 1994:269-73).12

As has been said, the Ministry for the Environment was weak because itwas a state ministry, with limited funds and staff. The EnvironmentalImpact Management Agency (Badan Pengendalian Dampak Lingkungan,Bapedal) was created in 1990 to implement the policy of the Minister forthe Environment and to coordinate the scattered environmental activitiesof other ministries. Bapedal has faced the same problems that exist amongsimilar institutions in other countries: lack of staff, lack of funds, lack ofexpertise, and areas of responsibility that compete with established insti-tutions, such as the Capital Investment Coordinating Board, BKPM. For-tunately, Bapedal has received substantial foreign donor support from thebeginning, but due to financial and staffing problems Bapedal could onlyopen offices in those provinces where it carried out its Clean River Pro-

11 The Clean River Programme (Program Kali Bersih, Prokasih) is an example. Under thisprogramme, the government induced 2,000 firms along the most highly polluted rivers to sign'voluntary' agreements to reduce water pollution (World Bank 1994:77,133).12 Consultants as well as big NGOs have discovered the lucrative market of providingcompanies with the necessary positive reports for the Amdal procedure. Quite often, the civilservants who laid down the regulations are the same ones who write assessment reports asconsultants and then approve the reports as Amdal committee members (MacAndrews1994:98).


gramme (MacAndrews 1994; McCormick 1989:125-6; World Bank 1994:179-82).

Nature conservation in the strict sense is the responsibility of theMinistry of Forestry, in particular of the Directorate of Forest Protectionand Nature Conservation (Perlindungan Hutan dan Pelestarian Alam,PHP A). Indonesia has declared 19 million ha - 10 percent of its total landarea - as nature reserve or nature reserve in formation, but effective man-agement is, once again, constrained by shortage of staff, expertise, infra-structure and budget (World Bank 1994:19). Most of the nature reservesexist only on paper. Trees in the parks have been illegally felled; forinstance, 20,000 of the 67,000 ha of Ujung Kulon National Park were felledin five years (Suara Pembaruan 8-6-1995), and tigers, rhinoceros and otherprecious animals have been poached to the point of extinction. Within theministry the PHPA Directorate is at the bottom of the pecking order. By anunwritten rule, all directorships and higher positions are occupied byalumni of the faculties of forestry of the prestigious universities Uni-versitas Gadjah Mada and Institut Pertanian Bogor; they were trained asforesters, and tend to allow logging interests to prevail over conservation.

There is talk of transferring the PHPA Directorate to the Ministry forthe Environment, which then would become a sectoral ministry with morefunds and local offices. Nevertheless, I believe that this transfer would bea strategic mistake. First, a sectoral Ministry for the Environment wouldstill be unable to protect conservation and catchment areas against thecompeting interests of logging, transmigration and army training. Conserv-ation would be better off under the umbrella of the Ministry of Forestry,provided this ministry takes conservation seriously, for it has the power toresist pressure from rival departments. Second, there is the risk thatecological issues would be reduced to nature conservation. Third, thenimbyist sectoral ministries would be able to slough off their problems tothe Ministry for the Environment. It is better that the Ministry for theEnvironment remain a small state department that plays the devil'sadvocate, reminding sectoral departments of the environmental conse-quences of their respective policies.

The division of competencies in the government is mirrored in the par-liament. The tenth parliamentary committee, Komisi X, responsible forthe environment, can ask questions only of the Minister for the Environmentand is not entitled to interrogate the ministers of industry, forestry ortransmigration, who fall under other committees. This division obstructs aserious discussion in a parliament that is weak anyway. The main contri-bution of Komisi X is that it functions as a forum where ordinary people canvoice their protests under the spotlight of the press.

In the hierarchic administrative culture of Indonesia, the man at thetop is of prime importance. A change of cabinet can mean a change ofpolicy, for better or for worse. In 1993 the highly articulate Emil Salim

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was replaced by Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, but Emil Salim continues to givetalks and interviews, often at the request of his former ministry. The sameyear Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo became Minister of Forestry and, un-like his predecessor and to the surprise of many, began to takereforestation legislature seriously. In a short time a number of companiesthat did not comply with the rules lost their logging concessions. Othercompanies had to hand over part of their shares to state enterprises sothat the Ministry of Forestry would gain direct control. Djamaludin hasalso proposed to change the term of concessions from 20 to 60 or 70 years,which makes it financially remunerative for companies to reforest, and hewants to restrict the size of concessions to 100,000 ha. Lobbies by loggers tohave this minister removed prematurely have failed, but a new ministerin the next regular change of cabinet may lose control again. Ultimately,the environment only stands a chance with support from the president.President Soeharto is certainly worried, partly, it is said, after havingseen the environmental damage done to his native region and his favouritefishing grounds at Pulau Seribu in Jakarta Bay. Some companies withpresidential relations, however, escape administrative scrutiny (Cribb1990:1128-9).

In short, the government so far has not provided the solution for thetragedy of the commons because there are too many nimbyists within itsranks. However, there are also pimfyists, mainly the civil servants of theMinistry for the Environment and Bapedal.

NGOs for environmental protection

Several authors are optimistic about the potential of NGOs. Their growingnumbers, international cooperation, expert knowledge and growing polit-ical sophistication enhance NGO influence. Faxes, e-mail and cheapflights facilitate communication, but it has also been observed that Indo-nesian NGOs perceive issues differently than their international partners(Aditjondro 1990:16; McCoy and McCully 1994:69; Porter and Brown 1996:50-4). My thesis is that the differing perceptions at the international,national and local levels form a major obstacle to effective cooperationamong NGOs on all three levels. The problem of these differing viewshampering concerted NGO action is, if not a global phenomenon, at least arecurrent issue in developing Asian countries (Ewers 1994; Gadgil and Guha1994).

It is the government that determines the NGOs' room to manoeuvre,although NGOs may influence these parameters. The attitude of govern-ments towards NGOs falls somewhere on a continuum ranging from neglectthrough cooperation to containment (Riker 1995:23-34). The trend in Indo-nesia has been towards subjecting NGOs to more restrictive legislation. AllNGOs must adopt the state philosophy Pancasila as their sole ideology,


and they must register with the Department of Home Affairs.13 NGOs arenot permitted to disturb law and order, to receive aid from foreign donorswithout government consent, or to promote communism. Provincial andregional administrations are responsible for making an inventory of allNGOs and creating a climate in which NGOs cooperate with governmentagencies. Despite these restrictions, NGOs are an attractive way for urbanmiddle-class intellectuals to express their opinions about the developmentprocess now that the government has emasculated the old mass organiz-ations (Riker 1995:45-7; Sinaga 1995:55, 211-5; Smith 1992:24). Discussionof the environment has been granted considerable latitude by the Indone-sian government, and because of this tolerance the topic is used for address-ing wider social and political affairs in Indonesia. A positive point is thatarticle 19 of the 1982 Basic Environmental Management Act explicitlyacknowledges NGOs as active players in the nation's conservation efforts.

Since Stockholm, international NGOs (that is, western NGOs operatingon a global level) have shown interest in developing countries. Theirpriorities have been issues with global consequences: loss of biodiversity,global warming and, recently, a planned nuclear power plant in CentralJava. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and other international NGOscannot operate overtly, so they keep a low profile in Indonesia. WWF is ina different position: it refrains from advocacy, cooperates with the govern-ment and has had an office in Jakarta since 1962. WWF supports the gov-ernment in the management of a number of natural reserves, and in thebeginning it formed the financial backbone of the Gunung Leuser and UjungKulon reserves (Overweel 1994).

Some northern environmentalists argue that where globalization is theroot cause of deforestation, localization of environmental management andthe use of indigenous knowledge is the answer (Dove 1988:8-22; McNeely1992). However, it seems unreasonable vis-a-vis the other Indonesians togive all the forest landrights to the tribal people who happen to havesettled there before new ways to exploit those forests and their logs, oiland water had become important. It is unrealistic to cut up the world intoautarchic territories. A localization of responsibilities could only succeedif the tribal way of life were fossilized, and even then, this option isprobably based on an idealistic picture of primitive people living in har-mony with their surroundings. Such a picture is not in line with actualpractice. George Aditjondro (1990:11-2) therefore remarks that northernNGOs are single-issue oriented ('environmentalist fundamentalism') andhave a tribal bias, with a disregard for the socio-economic needs andecological problems that ordinary peasants face.

On the national level, there is a range of big NGOs, or BINGOs, of

13 The word NGO is rarely used in Indonesia; it sounds too much like anti-government. Thecommon phrase is Lembaga Swadaya Masyarakat (LSM, Community Self-Reliance Institute)(Sinaga 1995: 56-60).

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which the most important deserve to be mentioned by name. WALHI(Wahana Lingkungan Hidup, founded in 1980) is a forum of 300 to 500 localNGOs from all over the country and the Indonesian partner of Friends ofthe Earth. SKEPHI (Jaringan Kerjasama Pelestarian Hutan Indonesia,founded in 1982) is more radical. SKEPHI has refused donations from 'sus-pect1 donors and its organization has remained small, lean and independ-ent compared to WALHI. SKEPHI's original focus was forestry, but it haswidened its scope. The Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL,founded in 1993) disseminates information on environmental law and sup-ports lawyers and communities involved in environmental legal cases. Kon-phalindo (1991) and Pelangi (1992) are both research groups servicingother NGOs. INFID (founded in 1985) is not an NGO in the strict sense, buta network facilitating contact between Indonesian and internationalNGOs. It has both an Indonesian and a non-Indonesian steering committeeand liaison offices in The Hague and Tokyo. Being a network, INFID is notsubject to the official regulations for NGOs. YLBHI, or LBH for short(Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia, founded in 1971), is a legalaid institute that often provides green NGOs with advice in lawsuits oreven joins them in lawsuits as plaintiff. The main strategy of the two mostvisible NGOs, WALHI and SKEPHI, is advocacy, the appeal of a thirdparty (the NGO) on behalf of an individual or group with a grievance (thefirst party) to some kind of authority (the second party) (Van Tuijl andWitjes 1993:208). Naturally, these activities are couched in local dis-course. Mas Achmad Santosa, executive director of ICEL (interviewed inInside Indonesia, June 1995), states that he tries to avoid court cases, whichare often so vexing, and seeks alternative mechanisms for settling disputesthat are socially, culturally and politically more acceptable in Indonesia.

The first lawsuit instigated by a green NGO was against the pulp andcellulose fibre company PT Inti Indorayon Utama. PTHU had built a newfactory on the Asahan River (North Sumatra) in 1986. The factory wasfinanced by a consortium of Indonesian and foreign banks, mostly European.PT IIU's factory deposited untreated chemicals (waste from pulp bleach-ing) in the river, causing declining fish catches and skin rashes amongvillagers downstream. Women had to walk great distances in search ofunpolluted drinking water. PT IIU obtained several logging concessions ofover 200,000 ha to supply the pulp factory with raw material. Part of thearea was clear felled without reforestation, and part replanted withmonocrop production forest without permission. PT IIU does its logging in asensitive catchment area on which many sawah depend. The water tablein Lake Toba is dropping. A flood and landslide, attributed to PT IIUoperations, killed 22 villagers. In 1988 the dam of an aerated waste-col-lection lagoon broke and a wave of toxic material flowed into the Asahan.This prompted WALHI and LBH to bring a court case against PT IIU aswell as the national investment board, the ministers of industry, forestry


and the environment, and the governor of North Sumatra for licensing thecompany without a proper environmental impact analysis. The courtdecided in favour of PT IIU. Nevertheless, the case was a milestone, forthe right of WALHI to sue in environmental cases was accepted (Cribb1990:1133^4; Pangaribuan and Pangaribuan 1990; SKEPHI 1994:77-83;WALHI 1992:42-7).14

BINGOs judge deforestation and environmental pollution as the mainproblems. They deal with individual cases but are more concerned aboutthe aggregated effects on a national scale. They are all based in Jakarta,which is not only the national capital but also the registered office ofmany international organizations and the domicile of foreign correspond-ents. Their public relations are fully geared to international discourse.They occupy pleasant offices, play tunes for people who call them andhave to wait in a telephone stack, and have nicely styled visiting cardsprinted on recycled paper. They use fax and e-mail, and publish reports,journals and communiques in correct English. For their income, BINGOsdepend largely on foreign donations, which partly explains their inter-national orientation.15

At the grassroots level, people perceive a problem when their liveli-hood is directly threatened. They are not wiser than nimbyists and tendnot to see their own polluting behaviour; but whereas the short-term per-spective of a nimbyist is profit, theirs is loss. Saivah cultivators see theirrice wither when golf links consume too much water, and their yields maydecline by a third. Laundresses get itchy skin from washing clothes in theriver when a new factory upstream discharges toxic effluent. Shifting cul-tivators run the risk of overexploiting a diminished resource base when alogging concessionaire closes forest land to which the cultivators have tra-ditional but unregistered rights. Women in urban kampung have increasingdifficulties drawing water when a nearby factory uses an electric pump.Urban dwellers may also suffer from industrial noise, dust, or smoke. Thesepeople are not concerned about erosion, loss of biodiversity, global warm-ing, or marine pollution. They face immediate loss of income or health.They feel that they are victims, and they ask themselves: 'why in myback yard?' (wimby).

At this grassroots level, once an environmental problem has beendefined as a social problem it invariably becomes a social conflict. It is not

14 The people living in the vicinity resorted to non-legal forms of opposition as well. Theforest concessions of PT ITU partly overlap with land with adat land rights. Infuriated peasantsfrom one village ripped up 16,600 eucalyptus seedlings from the production forest in a classicalexample of everyday peasant resistance. The subsequent court case against ten womenattracted wide media coverage. When a chemical tank of the plant exploded in 1993, worriedneighbouring residents burnt down 125 company houses (SKEPHI 1994:82; WALHI 1992:48-53).15 According to Overweel (1994) it is typically Indonesian that BINGOs are more account-able to their donors than to their grassroots. He explains this by noting the law preventing theNGOs from developing a mass organizational backing.

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just a matter of wimbyist against nimbyist, but also of local people againstentrepreneur, or the relatively powerless against the people with theright government connections. Picking up the gauntlet implies that localpeople must fight the social order. Consequently, the chances of success forthe people at the grassroots level are small indeed. Local people can onlytake a hard line when they have some form of internal organization,perhaps a local NGO, and are backed by a national NGO. One examplemay highlight the problems faced by the local people. In 1994 the head(bupati) of the district of Serang, West Java, warned five industries thatwere polluting the Ciujung River to take action. It was suspected that theywere using pipelines and bypassing their waste treatment equipment tosave money, and that they discharged illegally at night and during heavyrainfall. Early in January 1995 2,000 households, united in the Perkum-pulan Masyarakat Pemakai Air Ciujung (People's Association of the Usersof the Water from the Ciujung), supported by LBH and ICEL, complained tothe regional environmental impact management agency, Bapedal, aboutcontinuing pollution. Ten days later they reported the sudden death ofshrimp and fish in 800 ha of ponds. Bapedal's suggestion to build a pipe-line to discharge directly into the sea was rejected by ICEL: it wouldmerely relocate the problem and remove the incentive for the factories touse their waste treatment facilities. When the bupati of Serang closed thesmallest of the five factories, LBH, ICEL and the residents protested thatthey had only asked to close the sewers, not the factories, that this hurtthe labourers' interests, and that the bupati had used the smallest factoryas a scapegoat to protect the others (Kompas 3-2-1995 to 8-2-1995).

In the web of international, national and local NGOs, BINGOs occupy abroker position. Their network is their main asset, and information theirworking capital. Either on their own initiative or upon request, theyprovide international NGOs as well as the national government, theWorld Bank and the press with reliable field information in the form ofpress releases, talks and interviews. They voice the opinions of inter-national NGOs in Jakartan circles. They facilitate meetings between localpeople and parliamentarians, and inform local NGOs about nationallegislature. They pass on complaints from local people to foreign donorsand the national and international press, bringing foreign pressure to bearon the government to persuade it to act in the interest of the people. It is apity that messages being passed from one party to another often get stuckat the BINGO level, and it would be helpful if the international and localNGOs could establish direct contact. A recent INFID programme providinglocal NGOs with e-mail is a positive aspect of the globalization ofenvironmental protection. This programme may weaken the strategicposition of BINGOs, and there are indications that not all of them are


pleased with the grassroots e-mail.16 I believe, however, that for sometime to come, BINGOs will not be bypassed. They are still needed totranslate global discourse into local concerns and vice versa, as we will seewhen we examine the different links in the network of relevant actors.

BINGOs are quite effective in their relationship with the government.The key to BINGO influence is in the government's not being a monolith,but divided into competing departments, and even competing directorateswithin a department. The Ministers for the Environment and Forestry viewBINGOs as allies in their discussion with other parties in the governmentand have regular talks with them (Far Eastern Economic Review 16-11-1995). BINGOs have leverage because they can offer information from thegrassroots. The Minister of Forestry, for instance, uses BINGO figures ondeforestation or replanting of saplings by logging companies as anindependent source of information. His own civil servants may, in someway, have a stake in the logging practices and be unconsciously biased inthe information they provide. For the same reason, the World Bankappreciates information from NGOs as an alternative to statements fromthe Indonesian government. Of course, not all civil servants look favour-ably upon NGOs. Nimbyist officials at the national and regional levelsconsider NGOs a nuisance and are known to have tried to intimidate them.

Communication between international NGOs and BINGOs is not alwayssmooth. International NGOs are output-oriented and keep hammeringaway about accountability regarding finances and contact with the public.They find it difficult to sail between the Scylla of dictating policy and theCharybdis of BINGO inertia or lack of expertise. Indonesians, on the otherhand, reproach northern NGOs for promoting their own agenda ratherthan supporting the agendas of southern NGOs, and even speak of neo-colonialism (Aditjondro 1990; Setiakawan July-September 1993). The caseof the Scott paper and pulp factory in Irian Jaya left most environ-mentalists. with mixed feelings. In 1988 the Scott Paper Company, inconjunction with the Indonesian Astra Group, expressed a desire to open apaper factory along with a 125,000 ha wood plantation in Irian Jaya, aUS$ 654 million investment. Scott was considering expanding its forestconcession to 850,000 ha later. Local and national NGOs were critical ofthe project, but found that Scott was willing to discuss ways to reducenegative environmental and social impact. Meanwhile, the RainforestAction Network and other non-Indonesian NGOs launched a hardcampaign against Scott in the US, threatening a global boycott. Underpressure at home, Scott withdrew from the investment. Within months,the Indonesian government started negotiations with Korean, Taiwaneseand Japanese pulp factories. American NGOs celebrated Scott's decision as

16 A recent example, taken from one act in the Freeport tragedy, concerns a London NGOthat put an Amungme statement on internet before the infuriated local NGO had signed andreleased that declaration in Irian Jaya.

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a victory, but Indonesian NGOs feared that they were far worse off withthe new investors. In the end, Astra's new partner was an Indonesian state-owned forestry company, Inhutani II, financed by reforestation funds(Environesia December 1989, December 1990; Far Eastern Economic Review2-11-1989; Wall Street Journal 20-1-1989). With the participation ofInhutani II, the final outcome may not be so bad after all.

Ideally, BINGOs and international NGOs, after adequate consultation,undertake concerted action in different political arenas at the same time togain maximum impact. A positive example is the failed foreign publicityoffensive of Bob Hasan, the 'timber king' of Indonesia. On a mission toStrasbourg he was confronted with a barrage of critical questions fromEuroparlementarians, who had been briefed by SKEPHI and EuropeanNGOs. Hasan hit back with an advertisement shown on TV in the USA,Japan, France and on CNN. The advertisement was pulled from TV in theUK and the Netherlands after lobbying by Down to Earth, Greenpeace,SKEPHI and other NGOs. It was forbidden because the advertisement wasmisleading, unjustly stating that clear cutting was not permitted, while infact it is permitted for transmigration and industrial forests (Down toEarth August 1994; Inside Indonesia December 1994).

Communication between BINGOs on the one hand, and internationalgreen NGOs and general NGOs on the other,17 is troubled by one-sidedfinancial dependency. BINGOs rely on foreign financial support, but do notwant to be donor-driven. WALHI at one time even rejected further supportfrom the Dutch donor NOVIB, mirroring the 1992 Indonesian-Dutch diplo-matic break at the intergovernmental level. The wish of WWF Indonesiato become a national office can be seen in the same light.18 Conversely,international NGOs sometimes withdraw funds if they do not have confid-ence in BINGOs. International NGOs fear that BINGOs will establishpatronage networks with local NGOs and stimulate the latters to applyfor grants directly to international NGOs, bypassing the BINGOs. Kortenand Quizon (1995:154) note that even direct channelling of funds to villageorganizations can be dysfunctional, as it diverts attention away frommobilizing local resources and empowering the people. The balance ofpower between international NGOs and BINGOs is not wholly skewed.International NGOs need contacts with BINGOs to legitimize their claimof working for the poor of the world. After all, these international NGOsare accountable to the western public that supports them. The same is true,by the way, mutatis mutandis, for the World Bank and its donor states.

17 General development NGOs are more important as donors than green NGOs. Theyinclude USAID, CIDA, the Ford Foundation, the Toyota Foundation, Oxfam, NOVIB, HIVOSand others.18 WWF Indonesia is how a so-called programme office, financed by the WWF world head-quarters in Gland and some European national offices, but its ambition is to become a nationaloffice itself. In that case WWF Indonesia would have.to raise its own funds and make overcontributions to Gland, instead of receiving funds.


Communication between BINGOs and local NGOs is not simple either.The urban middle-class staff working for BINGOs do not easily reach thegrassroots. Both sides find it difficult to articulate their views andwishes. Some staff members feel that fieldwork is incongruous with theirwhite-collar positions. It is promising that the initiative for contactbetween BINGOs and local people, whether they are organized in a smallNGO or not, comes increasingly from below. Whereas formerly BINGOsacted as spokesmen for the grassroots in bringing their problems beforegovernment officials or companies, today the victims of pollution,transmigration and logging concessions speak for themselves. BINGOs arestill needed to swing local people into action against investment plans thatexist on paper only. Local people tend to ignore potential threats until theconsequences become plainly visible. For instance, local residents at firstshowed little interest in the planned nuclear power plant in Central Java,mainly because there was no immediate threat and no awareness of futuredanger. The Indonesian government actively prevented public meetings atwhich NGOs could disseminate information (Suara Pembaruan 22-5-1995).However, letters to the editor about the reactor began to appear in Indo-nesian newspapers in the course of 1996.

Freeport

I want to conclude this article with a more extensive discussion of thecontroversial Freeport copper and gold mine, which has created a series ofecological and social tensions. In this case, international, national andlocal NGOs have tried to cooperate with varying degrees of success. PTFreeport Indonesia is a daughter of New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan(85.4 percent), the Indonesian government (10 percent) and some minorshareholders. Freeport obtained a mining concession for the Ertsberg in1967. For decades Freeport has dumped waste ore into the Ajikwa Riverwhich flows to the Arafura Sea. Massive siltation was the result, withdisastrous effects for the forest ecosystem downstream and the Kamoropeople living in the forest. The river has become turbid and has even driedup in places, so that fishing has become impossible. Recurrent floods havekilled the sago stands. Freeport has built an embankment along one stretchof one side of the Ajikwa to protect the mining town of Timika; unfortun-ately this has only diverted more water to the other unprotected side,with its forests. The gardens traditionally grown along the banks havebeen destroyed. Epidemic diseases swept through communities that hadbeen forcibly resettled in unfamiliar ecosystems. There has been discussionabout whether the tailings are toxic or not (Far Eastern Economic Review10-3-1994; Marr 1993:71-87; SKEPHI 1994:95101). Just as important as theecological damage is the matter of access to land. A new contract signed in1991 expanded Freeport's concession from the original 10,000 ha to an

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enormous 2.5 million ha. The indigenous Amungme had to leave their landin order to make room for the giant copper and gold mine and the boomingmining towns of Timika and Tembagapura.

Soon after Freeport started operations, the indigenous Amungme peoplebegan to protest, sometimes in violent ways. The Indonesian armyresponded with repressive violence, making use of Freeport containers toimprison arrested persons and company vehicles to transport detainees. In1995 the Roman Catholic Bishop of Jayapura reported that the army hadshot eleven Amungme in cold blood, and that these were not the firstkillings. The Bishop's report triggered Papuan students to demonstrate infront of the national parliament in Jakarta and at the provincial parlia-ment in Irian Jaya. Following the Bishop's report, a group of IndonesianNGOs called on the National Commission for Human Rights. At about thesame time, the council of the Amungme issued a statement demanding thattheir traditional rights to the land be recognized by the state, thatFreeport be brought to trial in the US and Indonesia for its violation ofhuman rights and environmental destruction, and that Freeport stop allpublic relations activities to influence international and local opinion. TheIndonesian NGO WALHI took the government to court for approvingFreeport's Environmental Impact Assessment. Since 1974 Freeport has triedto mitigate local resistance with a school, polyclinic and other facilities.In response to pressure by the Rainforest Action Network and other NGOsat home, Freeport hired Ogilvie & Mather for a 'good image' campaignand also financed a US tour of Asmat dancers. Freeport lobbyists used theirinfluence in the US Congress to silence its critics; USAID is now under pres-sure to withdraw funding from Indonesian NGOs that campaign againstFreeport. Despite Freeport's public offensive, the American OverseasPrivate Investment Corporation cancelled the company's insurance againstpolitical risks (Down to Earth November 1995; Far Eastern EconomicReview 10-3-1994, 23-3-1995; Marr 1993:71-87; NRC 6-12-1995; SKEPHI1994:95-101).

Concluding remarks

Indonesia has serious environmental problems stemming from urban livingconditions, industrial pollution and deforestation. These problems can beseen as partly the result of a number of global trends: population growth,adoption of western consumption patterns, cash-crop production for theworld market, transfer of industrial production and the dumping of waste.The tragedy of Indonesia is that not only Indonesians but also foreignersforage on the commons. Indonesia is not a passive victim of northerndominance, however, and there are actors in Indonesia who have activelycooperated with the North. There is also massive destruction of naturalresources taking place in the Archipelago for which Indonesians should be


held primarily responsible. The nimbyists responsible for the environ-mental degradation are to be found at both the global and the local levels.Indonesia, in turn, has even started to export its problems elsewhere: itsends abroad waste and pesticides from its own backyard and carries outlogging operations in other countries.

Development is necessary for 'meeting the basic needs of all andextending to all the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations for a better life'(World Commission 1987:8). For a number of reasons (World Commission1987:95-117), the development of the poor has proven to be imperative forreducing population growth, and a stable population is essential for con-taining the pressure on natural resources. Moreover, development of thepoor will increase environmental awareness and widen the economic mar-gins for investment in sustainable production. More development, however,inevitably implies a greater strain on the carrying capacity of the Indo-nesian ecosystem by consuming more resources and producing more waste.

The state's present strategy for development places too much trust inincreasing the gross domestic product by resorting to technical solutions.This trust breeds unwarranted optimism that ecological problems will besolved by technical means, impedes environmental awareness, and leavessocial questions undiscussed. It seems inevitable that a social change,namely a redistribution of wealth, must be an essential part of futuredevelopment if this development is to be sustained (Korten and Quizon1995; Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 1993:50). Redistribution helps todevelop the poor, which has a positive ecological impact, and at the sametime reduces overconsumption by the rich. This redistribution should takeplace on both the local and the global scale. 'Painful choices have to bemade' (World Commission 1987:9), but the political will necessary forsocial change is lacking. In the meantime, villagers and residents of theurban kampung remain subject to environmental hazards. Local groups per-ceive ecological deterioration as a social problem only when their liveli-hood is immediately threatened. At the root of almost every environ-mental problem in Indonesia, once it has been defined as such, is a socialconflict: citizens against the government, the poor against big entre-preneurs, local people against government protegees. The inherent socialconflict makes even minor changes that could reduce local environmentaldegradation difficult to achieve.

Globalization has not been exclusively detrimental to Indonesia'snatural conditions; it also offers opportunities. One opportunity is to poolresources and knowledge. UN conferences and bilateral and multilateralagreements are trying to establish a new ecological regime, and multi-lateral development banks are more receptive to environmental concerns.The Indonesian state has followed this global trend and signed inter-national agreements, established a Ministry for the Environment, andissued new legislation. However, there remains a sizeable gap between

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official statements of policy and the realities of implementation.All in all, NGOs remain the most likely actors to organize resistance

against nimbyist polluters. A global network of NGOs has emerged, butthere is a considerable mismatch of perceptions and priorities amongNGOs. International NGOs share global concerns, whereas the BINGOs inJakarta prefer to look at what is urgent in Indonesia. BINGOs in Jakartaare staffed with pimfyists who can permit themselves some detachment,whereas local NGOs face acute problems. Differing global, national andlocal views on environmental problems make the articulation of a commonagenda difficult. Despite these obstacles, NGOs have attained remark-able successes.

The final question is whether sustainable development is possible. Theanswer is that we do not know. But development must be sustainable or itcannot be called development. A localization of resource management,which some northern authors advocate, is based on an idealized picture oftribal Indonesians, and perhaps peasants, allegedly living in harmonywith nature, and seems unrealistic given the present balance of power. Thesolution must therefore be sought in the globalization of environmentalmanagement. Because of the globalization of economy, culture, and eco-systems, Indonesia's answer to the question of sustainability is only to someextent in its own hands.

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