Being reliant on limited news sources, a lot can be overlooked.
For example, there is an article in
today's Jakarta Post about the Regional Representatives Council, a toothless body somehow connected to the legislature, rejecting the Kalimantan border plantation plan. Great, I thought, it's about time that some representatives of 'the people' expressed concern on behalf of their 'constituents'.
Luther Kombong, a councillor from East Kalimantan, acknowledged that developing border areas was vital to improving local people's welfare and securing the nation's territory.
He said if the government really wanted to help people living on the border areas, it should first build basic infrastructure, ensure they had a proper education and improve transportation services.
"The people living at the border are not poor -- they have enough natural resources to survive but they don't have enough access to education and the economy. What the government has to do is to build roads, not convert forests," he said.
Kalimantan caucus chairman Kenna M. Aini Matseman Usop said the government should support the Kalimantan people's desire to protect their forests by encouraging alternative income-generating activities.
"The government should facilitate participation in carbon trading, from which they could earn money," Kenna said. A scheme under Kyoto Protocol allows industrialized countries to invest in carbon emission reduction projects in developing countries, including conserving forests to absorb greenhouse gasses.
Greenomics Indonesia executive director Elfian Effendi suggested the government ask for a "debt-for-nature swap" that allowed creditor countries to cut Indonesia's US$61 billion worth of foreign debt in return for forest conservation in Kalimantan. Of course. rather than saying 'this is wrong', isn't it better to say 'this is the way forward'?
Not having previously heard of them, I googled 'Greenomics Indonesia' in
Firefox and found
their website .
Unfortunately, when you click on their logo, as instructed, you get the following
message: We apologize. Please use Internet Explorer 4.0 or later to browse our site.Or, Firefox users, try
this link.
Although the site is in urgent need of an update and the removal of all the Flash stuff - the bane of so many Indonesian websites - they do seem to be a worthy organisation.
Greenomics Indonesia is a policy development institute that is devoted to introducing innovative empirical and field-based economic, financial and policy approaches for the purpose of supporting a move towards good natural resources governance.Footnote.If you are regularly read Jakartass in I E, why?
That aside, you should now be able to see my blogroll and t'other links in the right column rather than floating around at the bottom of the screen.
For this very belated innovation, I am indebted to
Treespotter who has very kindly fiddled around with my template. There are still a few glitches to be ironed out, like font
siz
es and the
italics, but at least you can now explore the Jakartass wacky world with greater ease.
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