[FREE REPORT]

OMNIBUS LAW THREATS TO PAPUA'S FORESTS AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Reported by: Amama Ira Amalia Priyono

The government and the DPR RI are actively pushing for the Job Creation Bill (RUU Cipta Kerja) to be immediately discussed and passed. The Cipta Kerja Bill was part of President Joko Widodo's promise of bureaucratic reform when he was elected for the second time. At that time, the President complained about the many investment regulations that were a convoluted process and wanted a simplification of the law in the economic sector, through the omnibus law. If the Cipta Kerja Law is later approved, this is will change many of the 79 existing laws.

In the environmental protection sector, for example, the omnibus law will remove key articles regulating environmental protection, remove environmental permits and Environmental Impact Assessment criteria, simplify the process of various permits, and eliminate government involvement in monitoring and imposing sanctions for perpetrators of environmental damage. The entire process is also controlled by the Central Government, which in the future will become a core player in determining the investment process.

For the plantation sector, it will change the rearrangement of the determination of maximum and minimum area limits for plantation business land use, remove the requirements for consideration of plantation area designations, remove the prohibition on transfer of rights to plantation business land, remove the time limit for mandatory concession rights over land since acquired, and facilitate the transition of companies to foreign capital. This law will also remove the obligation of business actors to facilitate community plantations at least 20 percent, remove the obligation of entrepreneurs to carry out environmental impact analysis, risk analysis and environmental monitoring.

Even without the omnibus law, Papua's natural assets have begun to be secretly plundered through the distribution of various forms of concession control. Deregulation of law through the omnibus law will not only make it easier to control the rights of indigenous peoples through legal mechanisms. For now, only Papua Island still has the largest area of ​​natural forest when compared to other islands in Indonesia. The persistence of indigenous peoples in Papua to uphold local wisdom values ​​has maintained the existence of forests and advocacy for the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples has also become a bulwark against capital efforts to control abundant natural resources. The ease of this transition is supported by regulations that do not protect the rights of indigenous peoples and the involvement of many parties.

The legal practice that is too pro-capital investment, and ignores the rights of indigenous peoples, will ultimately threaten the existence of natural forests and other natural resources in Papua. The exploitation of natural resources and eliminating the community's right to life will increase the escalation of conflict. Through the omnibus law, the government is exacerbating ecological disasters for life in the future. The increase in investment is not directly proportional to the improvement of the Papuan people's economy. Although Papua already has a Special Autonomy Law (UU Otsus), the presence of various sectoral laws and omnibus laws in the future will paralyze the application of the Special Autonomy Law.