Govt Ignored Disaster Warnings, Acting Too Slowly, Walhi Says

The Jakarta Post
Thursday, December 28, 2006

The government did nothing to prepare for the floods and landslides in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatra that have killed more than 100 people, a leading environmental group says.

"The huge floods and landslides that hit some parts of Sumatra were predictable and could have been anticipated," Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) disaster manager Sofyan said at the group's headquarters Wednesday.

Last January, Sofyan said Walhi had sent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono a warning letter with a map illustrating disaster-prone spots on the island.

"The floods and landslides were not natural disasters, but the fruits of daredevil negligence," Sofyan said.

He said 83 percent of the country was vulnerable to disasters. They were predictable in Aceh because much of the province's forests -- traditional water catchment areas -- had been destroyed.

The government was not serious about handling disasters, he said.

"This can be proved by the government's allocation of funds (for disaster management and mitigation) which is only Rp 500 billion (US$55 million) this year for the entire country," he said.

"The government started providing shelters 12 days after a major earthquake hit Yogyakarta earlier this year. While private organizations managed to build 12,000 shelters two days after the disaster," Sofyan said.

The House of Representatives said it would finish deliberating a disaster management bill a year after the 2004 tsunami but lawmakers have still not passed it.

The geography in Aceh made it dangerous to log timber, he said.

"The incline in Aceh's landscapes is mostly between 30 and 40 degrees. Once trees in about a one-square-meter area are cut down, the impacts could reach up to 10 kilometers away," he said.

He urged the government to revoke the permits of 10 companies with logging concessions in the province.

Aceh has 3.3 million hectares of forests but a study by Greenomics -- a non-governmental organization focusing on mining and forestry -- found that 2.1 million hectares in protected and conservation zones have been cut down or converted into farms and plantations.

The degradation of forests has been accelerated by illegal and legal logging for timber used in post-tsunami reconstruction work.

A Greenomics survey says the seven regencies hit by floods in Aceh contributed 36 percent of timber supplied to the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency.