T

he string of deadly earthquakes and tsunamis that befell the country last year has created a collective consciousness on the need for robust disaster mitigation measures.

Stakeholders from various fields have reiterated the importance of reinforcing spatial planning rules founded on the principles of disaster mitigation, in addition to the integration of basic mitigation courses in the formal education curriculum.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director Nurhidayati said knowledge of the country’s disaster-prone geography should serve as the primary basis for national development plans.

“Natural disasters are a matter of when, not if. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the government has yet to seriously consider the potential losses it would suffer when essential infrastructure is destroyed by such disasters,” Nurhidayati said in a public discussion on Sunday.

She went on to say that the direct consequence of ignoring environmental factors in spatial planning reflected in the devastation of important infrastructure facilities by last year’s earthquakes and tsunamis.

Indonesia is infamously positioned on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where constant tectonic plate movements have caused major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. According to data from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s Geology Agency, the country is home to 127 active volcanoes, or about 13 percent of the world’s total.

Last year’s earthquakes and tsunamis, which struck West Nusa Tenggara’s Lombok in July, Central Sulawesi’s Palu and Donggala in September as well as Banten and South Lampung in December, caused significant damage to three of the country’s special economic areas (KEK) in Mandalika, Palu and Tanjung Lesung, respectively.

Nurhidayati called on the government to conduct an audit of the 2007 Spatial Planning Law to prevent the future establishment of vital sites, such as a KEK, in areas marked as geologically vulnerable.

A 2017 ministerial decree on audits for agrarian and spatial planning stipulates that such an audit constitutes an evaluation of spatial data and information to identify possible violations.

Rikardo Simarmata, a legal expert from Yogyakarta-based Gajahmada University, said regional administrations had to work closely with the central government to ensure that the prevailing law on spatial planning was properly implemented to minimize material losses in the event of a disaster.

“The 2007 Spatial Planning Law already stipulates that construction projects must always take into account the country’s disaster-prone geography. On paper, the government has indeed taken nature into consideration,” he said during the same event. “What’s still lacking, however, is the real implementation of that law.”

One way to ensure proper implementation of the Spatial Planning Law, Rikardo said, was to give regional administrations the authority to educate residents in their respective area about potential natural hazards caused by spatial planning violations. Such a move would be effective, since regional administrations were most familiar with their own geography, he said.

“By emphasizing local wisdom, regional administrations would prove to be more successful than the central government in convincing their citizens to take spatial planning seriously,” Rikardo said, adding that such educational efforts should be integrated with the formal education curriculum to ensure their long-term impact.

The country’s unpredictable geological activity has, in fact, spurred a national interest in spatial planning.

The Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG), for instance, has long released regional maps that show natural disaster risks. In addition to earthquakes and tsunamis, one of those maps also marks 274 cities and regencies across Sumatra, southern and central parts of Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua as prone to landslides.

According to data from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), 40.9 million people in the marked zones are at risk of landslides.

On Monday, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo opened the first Cabinet meeting of 2019 by once again instructing his administration to improve disaster education and mitigation, revealing to the public that he had allocated more budget funds for those purposes.