By Andi Abdussalam
Jakarta, April 8 (ANTARA) - Floods, landslides and other natural disasters which have caused huge material losses and claimed an uncountable number of lives over the past several years, are partly blamed on the loss of forests in river basin areas (DAS).
Floods and landslides hit various parts of the country during the rainy season and drought affected crops during the dry spells because river basin areas could no longer hold water when rain falls and channel it when dry season comes.
According to Ministry of Forestry, about 60 percent of 458 DAS areas found in various parts of Indonesia are now in damaged condition. "Damage to DAS areas is probably more than 60 percent. We are still making an inventory of DAS in bad condition," River Basin Management Director of the Forestry Ministry Dr Silver Hutabarat said.
Some have reached the critical condition (stage I) while others are still in stage II. "They are damaged due to exploitation of man and pressure of natural disasters. But most of the damage is likely due to human acts," Hutabarat said.
In Central Java for example, a total of 35 of the 128 river basins are now in critical condition as a result of sand mining and illegal logging by the local people, an activist said. Chairman of the Development Resources Research Center (LPPSP) Kertari said sand and stone mining as well as illegal logging were still going on in the region while the local people were not yet aware of the importance of preservation of areas prone to environment damage.
DAS Management Director Hutabarat said that damage would have impact not only on triggering floods and landslides but also on causing drought, poverty and health problems as it would reduce land productivity and water sources.
Therefore the DAS management should be done by all stakeholders because restoring the function of damaged DAS areas should not be done unilaterally. There are many parties involved such as the agriculture, plantation, mining and health services.
"So, a concerted effort must be made in handling damaged DAS areas, particularly those already in stage I," Hutabarat said. He mentioned the Agam-Kuantan in West Sumatra as one of the DAS areas which had experienced the stage I condition.
"We hope that the Agam-Kuantan DAS management service (BPDAS) would draw a more concrete and concerted program in cooperation with all stakeholders," Hutabarat said on Tuesday.
In West Sumatra province alone, at least 28 river basin areas have been in bad condition. According to Prof. Isril Berd of the Padang-based Andalas University, most of the river basin areas in West Sumatra are prone to natural disasters as they are now in bad condition.
"Of the 30 DAS areas in West Sumatra, 19 are now in stage I and nine in stage II. Those in stage I have the potential to generate floods and landslides," he said.
He said that all relevant parties should give attention to the river basin conditions immediately before they developed worst. Without serious attention from the relevant parties natural disasters such as floods and landslides could not be prevented.
Similar to those in other regions, river basin areas in West Sumatra have lost their function as a result of human acts such as dredging of DAS areas for mining purposes and illegal logging. All these happened because regional governments always looked for the loopholes and the weaknesses of regulations, regardless of the fact that DAS was a unity of ecosystem between rivers and the environment which functioned to hold rain water and that from lakes and channeled it during the dry spells.
However, the mentality of decision makers who always looked for the loopholes of regulations to exploit natural resource potentials, has caused increasingly critical impacts on DAS areas.
Isril Berd who is the dean of the Andalas University school of agriculture said that there would be no use for the local government to issue a license for mining exploitation if it would destroy the environment. In the future the DAS management should involve all parties that had interest so that DAS areas could be conserved.
In the meantime, activists on DAS forum should not remain silent but encourage all interested parties to make concerted efforts to conserve DAS areas. "So far decision makers still have the egoistic mentality so that DAS conservation efforts were made individually,"
Chairman of West Sumatra's DAS People Empowerment Forum, Dr Yuzirwan Rasyid said meanwhile that if the DAS areas lost their functions it would cause erosion, landslides, sedimentation, floods, loss of water reserves, unstable river water volumes and global warming.
The impact of this all would be creating environmental pollution, increasing production cost, reducing productivity, worsening climate change and boosting poverty, he said.
Therefore, all parties having interest with it should be fairly responsible in exploiting natural resources which means that those gaining the biggest benefits should also spend the biggest funds to conserve the environment.
In order to carry out all this, an economic evaluation on the condition of DAS areas from upstream to downstream should be made to know the benefits and risks all stakeholders had to bear.
He said that in the future a concerted DAS management should be made by involving the people with respect to the local wisdom, because as long as the DAS management was still carried out with the egoistic mentality, it would be difficult and take time to restore the DAS critical conditions and conserve it.
"So, all parties concerned with the DAS function should have responsibilities for its restoration by sharing benefits and risks," Yuzirwan said.***3*** (T.A014/A/HAJM/14:18/A/O001) (T.A014/A/A014/A/O001) 08-04-2009 14:31:21
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