Bylaws needed to protect heritage

The Indonesian Heritage Preservation Foundation (BPPI) has urged regional administrations to issue bylaws to preserve tangible heritage objects and sites.

The bylaws are needed to strengthen regions' commitments to protecting historic objects, BPPI head Hashim Djojohadikusumo said on the sidelines of workshop and seminar on historic cities here Friday. The bylaws would also serve as a reference in preservation efforts, he added.

Hashim said many historic objects had been damaged or had disappeared because of a lack of awareness, and because local administration's had been unable to maintain them.

"The worst thing is many precious historic sites have been removed or have been changed into commercial places, such as malls and shop houses," he said.

Established in 2004, the BPPI is a non-profit organization focusing on the preservation of heritage objects. The group brings together people from various backgrounds, including architecture, sociology, anthropology, economics, law and history, with all of them having similar concerns on heritage preservation.

Hashim said negligence had worsened under regional autonomy, since administrations at municipal and regency levels tended to focus on earning bigger revenues and disregarded heritage sites.

"We need stronger commitments from officials in all regions. We recommend they set up bylaws that would serve as guidelines to the prevailing heritage conservation laws," he said, adding that municipalities and regencies that had joined the Indonesian Network of Historic Cities (JKPI) should lead the way in implementing this recommendation.

Of the 478 regencies and municipalities nationwide, only 35 had joined the network, BPPI executive director Catrini P Kubontubuh said.

"This is regrettable, considering that we have heritage objects in every region, each of them having characteristic local values we should protect," Catrini said.