AN OVERVIEW OF INDONESIAN EIA By M.

Taufan Suranto (DPKLTS Indonesia) Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Indonesia known as Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan (AMDAL). The requirement of AMDAL was first defined under the Environmental Management Act No. 4 of 1982 (article 16) which stipulated that an AMDAL should be carried out for any proposed activity that is expected to have significant environmental effects. Specific policy of AMDAL was enacted when the government issued regulation (PP) No. 29 of 1986 which later adjusted by PP No. 51 of 1993. After 15 years implemented the first Environment Act of 1982, the government issued a new Environment Act No. 23 of 1997 due to adopt some universal principles of environment. To date the AMDAL regulation which based on Act No. 23 of 1997 is PP No. 27 of 1999. The deregulation of AMDAL above generally based on the procedure, study approach, relation to permit and commission authority. The latest regulation 27/1999 introduced further simplification. For example, the AMDAL sectored commission were dissolved and consolidated into a single commission, while the provincial commissions were strengthened and a new district/municipal commissions were allowed due to decentralization era. More specific and inclusive provisions for public involvement were introduced, as well as a suite of supporting technical guidelines. The Procedure The AMDAL procedure is dividing into three stages. These stages include the formulation of Kerangka Acuan Analisis Dampak Lingkungan or KA-ANDAL (Terms of Reference/ToR), undertaking AMDAL assessment itself and the process of evaluating or reviewing AMDAL. Deadline for completion the procedure are 150 days. KA-ANDAL must provide by the project proponent which assisted by a consulting firm. In this stage, the project proponent usually does not provide sufficient information about the project description. The consulting firm generally relies on the secondary data gathered through village offices. Consequently, the KA-ANDAL which are formulated through the scoping process are still too broad and do not address the actual issues in the community. That not mention the classical problem concerning consulting firm like methods of copy and paste from existing AMDAL document, fiction AMDAL and financial constraints. The results of AMDAL assessment are the documents of ANDAL, Environmental Management Plan (RKL) and Environment Monitoring Plan (RPL). RKL and RPL documents are important as post monitoring tools. The recommendation in those documents may revised some project planned activity such as site plan (e.g. Gombong Cement Industry in Central Java), technical design (e.g. 1 million hectares peat swamp project in Central Kalimantan during Soehartos era) and other requirements (e.g. ADB loan project: LNG Tangguh in Papua). The evaluation of AMDAL is done by the Central, Regional or District EIA Commission. Membership of the commission consists of departments/agencies related to environment, the Environmental Impact Management Agency (BPLH), Agency related to the proposed project, representatives of local government, the Environmental Research Centre of local Universities, relevant experts, NGO and affected people.

The major problem of commission members is the lack of competency about EIA and other environment instruments. The other problem is that Commission members usually presented by different person in each forum. Most of the comments came from members during the forum are tend to be administrative matters rather than substantial ones. The integrity, neutrality and transparency of the member are still questionable. The AMDAL Commission is also have potential for conflict of interest because in case of public sector project, the same agency is responsible both for preparing the AMDAL documents and for their review and approval. In the other hand, NGO role on AMDAL commission is as a non-permanent member together with affected people, which give a weak position to voice their concerns and aspirations. The project proponent usually misjudgment the AMDAL as the permission tool only and as an addition cost. They also misunderstanding that AMDAL is just formality, not give a benefit to their business activity. The absence of incentive and disincentive mechanism for project proponent that implemented the AMDAL is one of the problems to be fixed. Public Participation The lack information about the proposed project in the first hand has caused local people difficulty to figuring out the impacts. The most common response given by local people is that the proposed project will generate employment and job opportunities. At the AMDAL Commission, local people are frequently represented by the head of the village or parties which have been paid by the project proponent. This condition does not fully meet the principle of public participation. During the assessment, AMDAL researchers usually rely on formal approaches such as gathering local people in the village hall. This formal method is not appropriate and the intensity of contact considered low. In Indonesia context, in depth interviews method with questionnaire also has a disadvantage because most respondents tend to provide the right answer in order not to disappoint the interviewer. The conclusions of public involvement issues include lack of public participation, the formality of the process and the inappropriateness of the techniques employed. These result in poor quality AMDAL documents. To address the real issues, social impact assessment with integrated method is need to conduct in the context of ecosystem. AMDAL and NGO During the early 1990, some NGOs in Indonesia realized that the AMDAL process has lack of public participation. Considered the condition, for instance WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), has launched people-affected education called AMDAL KIJANG (Kaki Telanjang=bare foot) which give local people a basic knowledge to monitoring the AMDAL of project nearby. Other NGO, like Indonesian Centre for Environmental Law (ICEL) and E-Law Indonesia have made excellent paper regarding critique on public participation in AMDAL policy. Mean while, several local based NGO have established an advocation strategy to monitoring the AMDAL process as well as community development program. The challenge of decentralization era in Indonesia has led local NGO as a front-line in monitoring such AMDAL, although there are problems of capacity building. It is necessary to form the network of NGO and local people in every region in order to monitor the AMDAL. Furthermore an international EIA monitoring network must be established to strengthen the local NGO resources especially when dealing with IFIs project.