Happy World Environment Day, fellow earthlings!
Well honestly, I personally believe that we should really commemorate this
particular day not only on June 5 annually, but every single day of our lives.
I repeat, it should be happened EVERY SINGLE DAY OF OUR LIVES, DEAR HUMANS! For we
interact with the environment every second of our days. We should really be
more considerate and conscious knowing the fact that we are all sharing the
planet Earth together, thus each of us is holding an equal responsibility to
sustain our nature. Seriously man, there is no single excuse available for you
not to join the global movement to protect our planet. Wait, there is one
actually: GO MOVE TO ANOTHER PLANET!
You need to always realize that each of your
actions counts, really. Picking up rubbish on the street, turning off the lights and electronic devices in your house when you are not around, separating your household waste,
traveling with your bicycles instead of your cars, bring your own Eco-Bag
whenever you go shopping to reduce the usage of plastic bags, and even making
such a crappy campaign writing like what I am doing right now does count (I
guess). This time, I would like to share some information (and personal
opinion) on the MDGs, especially MDG7 and the condition as well as responses of
the people in my home province (Bangka Belitung, Indonesia) have been
contributing. It will be long and boring, yet if you survive reading it until
the very end of it I'd definitely wish you to have a much better life. Hahaha.
The
MDGs
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were
established in 2000 as an ambitious set of international targets for development
improvements during the first 15 years of the new century. Their creation
marked a historical achievement and galvanized political support around improving
conditions for all people, throughout the world. They permitted governments and
other key stakeholders such as donor organizations, foundations and the private
sector to “speak the same language” for the first time about international
development (Lundine et al., 2013). The
MDGs originated from the United Nations Millennium Declaration. The Declaration
asserted that every individual has dignity; and hence, the right to freedom,
equality, and a basic standard of living that includes freedom from hunger and
violence and encourages tolerance and solidarity. The MDGs set concrete targets
and indicators for poverty reduction in order to achieve the rights set forth
in the Declaration.
Moreover, the MDGs are globally known to be
comprised of eight categories of measurable goals for improving national level
outcomes including:
- MDG1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- MDG2: Achieve universal primary education
- MDG3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- MDG4: Reduce child mortality
- MDG5: Improve maternal health
- MDG6: Combat Malaria, HIV/AIDS and other
diseases
- MDG7: Ensure environmental sustainability
- MDG8: Global partnership for development
Indonesia’s
Stance on the MDGs
The MDGs are not new to Indonesia. Since the
development program existed, program towards the MDGs target had been
implemented. The government of Indonesia, coordinated by the Ministry of
National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) and the special envoy for the
achievement of the MDGs, has taken a whole of government approach to coordinate
resources and delegate authority to achieve the MDG targets by 2015
(Murniningtyas and Widyono, 2008). The MDGs guided the 2010-2014 National Development
plan and the actions of the responsible ministries such as health, education
and the environment.
Henceforth, continued progress will mean
improvement in the lives of millions of Indonesians and, increasingly, those
who are the most at risk and hardest to reach. Under the process, Indonesia set
multiple national-level goals that addressed each of the MDGs and it has made
steady progress on most, achieving several of the targets. This essay, however,
focuses specifically on the MDG7 whose main concern is to ensure the
environmental sustainability.
Taking a bachelor degree on environmental
science and management in a slightly more developed neighbor country these past
three and a half years, I personally have come to realize that Indonesia has
been encountering tougher challenges on showing significant achievement towards
the MDG7, particularly in terms of geographical factors and the general level
of environmental awareness of the society compared to other ASEAN countries
such as Malaysia and Singapore. Under MDG7, Indonesia has not halted
deforestation and emitted more carbon dioxide in 2008 compared to 2000, yet has
improved protection of fisheries and biologically diverse land areas
nonetheless. Other than that, according to the data obtained by Kantor Urusan Khusus Presiden RI Untuk
Millenium Development Goals (the President of Republic of Indonesia’s
Office for MDGs’ Special Affairs), our
country has also been performing constant increment in the case of the
percentage of provision of clean drinking waters and appropriate sanitation
systems in both urban and rural areas.
Bangka
Belitung and the MDG7
As one of the youngest provinces in Indonesia,
which was coincidentally established in the exact same year when the global
movement towards the MDGs was welcomed and started worldwide, Bangka Belitung has
not been performing disappointing contribution at achieving the MDG7 on global
environmental sustainability. In fact, it has been showcasing such an
impressive continual improvement. This showed by a number of environmental
awards (i.e. Piala Adipura, Piala
Adiwiyata) which had been granted by the Ministry of Environment to several
districts and local schools these last couple of years.
Besides that, the establishment of certain
non-political social organizations and/or youth communities which aim to
increase the environmental awareness of the local society (e.g. KOPHI Babel, Komunitas Duta Lingkungan
Hidup, Pucuk Idat Nature Lovers Organization,
etc.) exhibit the fact that people of Bangka Belitung are actually willing to
contribute at achieving the global mission to ensure environmental
sustainability as declared in the MDG7. There also have been a number of
creative local initiatives which have successfully tried to instill better
environmental understanding and mind set into the mentality of Bangka Belitung
society. For instances, the recent “Pemilihan
Duta Lingkungan Hidup” program and “Bike
to School and Pasir Padi Beach Clean-Up” campaign.
As a local youth who have personally
participated in those local environmental initiatives, I strongly believe that
they have enlightened a significant number of local people on how we are
actually sharing the same side of the earth together and thus each of us indeed
has an equal responsibility to sustain our environment. Throughout the “Pemilihan Duta Lingkungan Hidup”
program, I have met a number of local young generations who are really willing
to execute innovative green ideas in our own backyard, yet they have been
facing discouraging factors such as financial constraint and lack of supports
from local authorities to do so.
On the other hand, “Bike to School and Pasir Padi Beach Clean-Up” campaign which was
mainly organized by Bangka Belitung Police Department had successfully broken
national record by gathering up to 6000 students and staffs from local
educational institutions as well as the public to support the reduction of
regional CO2 emission and to encourage them to proactively keep our
tourism assets clean. Even though these initiatives might be considered as
rewards-driven, I gladly reckon them as good signs that public, government,
private entities and established local NGOs would be willing to work
hand-in-hand to contribute more significant roles at achieving the national
targets of the MDG7.
Illegal
tin mining is sadly still the prominent prohibiting factor
Bangka and Belitung produce 90% of Indonesia's tin, and
Indonesia is the world's second-largest exporter of the metal (Hodal, 2012). Tin
mining on Bangka Belitung islands off Sumatra has brought wealth, but at a
price; it is literally eating away at the land. The scale of the environmental
damage on the Bangka Belitung islands can be most clearly seen from the air,
revealing a lunar landscape of craters locally known as “Lubang Camuy” and hundreds of highly acidic, turquoise lakes
created by centuries of largely unregulated tin mining. Thousands of
small-scale traditional and often illegal mining operations sprung up in the
late 1990s when the Asian financial crisis wiped out jobs in other sectors of
the economy. Efforts in recent years to control illegal mining on the islands
have reverberated thousands of miles away by spooking world markets for tin in
global financial centers such as London.
The good
news is several of Indonesia's small
tin smelters in Bangka Belitung stopped production since last year and will
likely stay shut for the rest of this year because of the drop in tin prices. Those
small-scale or illegal mining in Indonesia was also being curbed as shallow
higher grade alluvial reserves had been rapidly depleted, while production
costs had risen. In relation to that fact, Indonesia's government has also said
it will set an annual tin production quota of 100,000 tons from next year in a
bid to reduce environmental degradation in the main tin-mining areas (Davies
and Wulandari, 2013). Bangka Belitung
local authorities stated that the dependence on mining sector had to be cut and
they would gradually try to stop small-scale traditional and often illegal
mining operations by encouraging local people to work instead in industries
such as tourism, maritime and agriculture.
Nevertheless,
even with a slowdown in small-scale mining, efforts to restore damaged land,
such as by replanting trees, were proceeding very slowly. A local official
estimated that 619,000 hectares had been damaged by tin mining and it costs
5-10 million rupiah per hectare to rehabilitate these areas. Hence, it is
indeed undebatable that tin mining is sadly still the prominent prohibiting
factor to regionally succeed the MDG7 on environmental sustainability here in
Bangka Belitung. But we shall never lose hope and stop merely relying on government
capacity for truly all it takes is the imperative supporting roles played by
local young generations, private entities, and environmental NGOs. Together we
surely might locally succeed the MDG7 and create a better planet to live in.
* * *
REFERENCES
Lundine, J., Hadikusumah, R.Y., and Sudrajat, T.
(2013). Indonesia’s progress on the 2015 Millenium Development Goals. Indonesia 360, 3(3):
54-66.
Murniningtyas, E., and Widyono. (2008). MDG
Indonesia: Status and the Way Forward. Unpublished paper presented at the
UN-DESA UN-ESCAP MDG Workshop, Bangkok.
