Drop Plan To Merge Environment And Forestry Ministries: Walhi

Bandarlampung, Lampung, Oct 23 (Antara) - The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has urged the House of Representatives (DPR) to reject the planned merger of the Forestry Ministry and the Environment Ministry into the Environment and Forestry Ministry. "Based on the circulating information and the copy of the president`s letter to the DPR, there has been a proposal for the merger of the Forestry Ministry and the Environment Ministry into the Environment and Forestry Ministry. This is not positive," Bejoe Dewangga, the executive director of the Walhi chapter in Lampung province, stated here on Thursday. Walhi also urged President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who was inaugurated on Monday (October 20), to drop the plan to merge the two ministries. At a meeting with Jokowi on May 12, 2014, in his capacity as the presidential candidate, Walhi once said that the next government needed to strengthen the Environment Ministry by turning it into a full-fledged ministry, Bejoe recalled. As a portfolio ministry, the next Environment Ministry will oversee the issues of spatial layout, conservation, and special forest areas, including the river basin areas by proposing the creation of an environmental court, he emphasized. "The Forestry Ministry will focus on forest production management, such as logging, timber estate, and social forest," he stated. Considering the fact that the president had urged the DPR to consider the planned merger of the two ministries showed that the president`s commitment to strengthen the Environment Ministry contradicted what he had pledged during his presidential campaigns, he added.