Indonesia: Fisheries Group Accuses Jakarta of Protecting Firms That Pollute Seas

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 28 Mar 12;

The Fisheries Justice Coalition has accused the government of trying to legalize the dumping of toxic waste into the sea.

It said the government’s draft regulation on the management of hazardous and toxic substances ignored the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and would open the door for polluters.

Indonesia has ratified the UN convention, which obliges it to take steps to prevent, minimize, and overcome sea contamination.

The fisheries coalition, or Kiara, urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to revise the draft regulation to close loopholes it said would allow companies to legally dump dangerous waste in the ocean.

It said the country needed tougher laws in place to protect its waters from the dangerous practice of dumping hazardous materials at sea.

“There are at least five reasons to reject the government’s draft regulation on toxic dumping,” Kiara’s secretary general, Riza Damanik, said on Tuesday. “It seems that the government is trying to protect environmental polluters by legalizing the dumping of waste at sea.”

Riza said the draft regulation only called on industries to voluntarily limit the production of dangerous waste instead of making it obligatory.

“The dumping of tailings [mining waste], for example, endangers the marine ecosystem and food chain,” he said.

However, the Environment Ministry’s deputy for hazardous and toxic waste, Masnellyarti Hilman, denied that the draft regulation legalized the dumping of waste into the sea.

“It doesn’t mean that companies are free to dump their waste. The regulation requires certain conditions to be met before they can dump waste into the sea,” Masnellyarti said. “The conditions are stipulated with the aim to eliminate or minimize the impact of waste dumped into the sea.”

She added that the draft regulation was written after intense discussions with experts.

In a recent case involving hazardous waste, a scrap metal exporter from Britain agreed to take back waste it had sent here.

“Britain said it would send a notification letter to take the containers back. The exporter, Stemcor UK Limited, will re-export it and it will reach England by April 30,” Masnellyarti said.

The Netherlands is helping to find where the waste originated.

“The Netherlands is trying to find out the origin of the waste, whether it was from that country or whether came from another country,” Masnellyarti said.

In January, customs agents working with the Environment Ministry found 113 shipping containers said to contain scrap iron but in fact held contaminated electronics waste and asphalt.

Some of the containers, which arrived at North Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok Port, were oozing a white liquid.