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Narrow stress on 'rule of law' fails to protect peatland
A narrow perception of the rule of law may harm public interests on a good and healthy environment and abuse the law itself.
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Burning peatland is seen in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. Uncontrolled peat fires can spread for kilometers underground and by air, causing a deadly smog. In 2015, this resulted in one of the greatest environmental disasters of the 21st century. (JP/Björn Vaughn)
I
t was a proud moment for Indonesia at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, in November 2017, when world leaders, including former United States vice president Al Gore, praised Indonesia’s efforts to restore and protect peatland to mitigate climate change.
Such efforts, led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, are indeed strategic and critical, especially in the aftermath of the 2015 forest fires that mostly occurred in carbon-rich peatland.
The fires led to 19 casualties, 500,000 people suffering from acute respiratory infections, disruption of classes for over 4 million students for a month and estimated losses of over Rp 220 trillion. The fires also released 1.62 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases, equivalent to emissions from nearly 350,000 vehicles throughout the year.
Peatland restoration and protection efforts in Indonesia require legal reinforcement, including by providing new rules on peatland spatial plans that requires preservation of the newly stipulated protected peat areas. However, peatland areas may have been granted business, plantation and agricultural permits or land rights. This situation indeed can lead to conflicts between the new rules and those permits or rights.
Permit or rights holders usually reject new rules citing narrowly defined legal certainty. Permit holders argue that they have secured the permit legally and hence the new rules should not impact their concessions.
Such conflict occurred recently when the Environment and Forestry Ministry issued a regulation that obliges forestry plantation permit holders to adjust their plans to comply with the new peat spatial plan determined by the ministry.
A lawsuit was filed against the regulation by Riau-K SPSI, a labor union in the forest industry. The Supreme Court granted the applicant’s request, stating that the new rules contradicted Law No. 41/1999 on forestry.
