Indonesia
is an archipelagic country with 18 thousands islands, residing flora
and fauna of two different types of origin ie the western part
(Indo-Malayan) and the eastern part including the Pacific and Australia.
Although
the land area is only 1.3% of the total land area of the earth, but
Indonesia has a unique and amazing diversity of flora and fauna. About
10% of flowering species, 12% of mammal species, 16% of reptile and
amphibian species, 17% of bird species and 25% of the world's known fish
species are distributed in Indonesian waters (BSP-Kemala, 2000). With
a coastal area reaching 81,000 kilometers or about 14% of the world
coastline, the marine ecosystem of Indonesia is very rich and varied. Indonesia's mangrove forests are extensive and have spectacular coral reefs in Asia. The coastal waters of Indonesia are a source of food for large numbers of marine mammals, reptiles, fish and birds. Shallow coastal areas with coral reefs and mangrove forests protect this region from the effects of ocean tides and tsunamis. Traditionally coral reefs have become a very important food source for coastal communities. What about tropical forests of Indonesia? Indonesia
is estimated to have the largest tropical forest area in Asia-Pacific
that is about 1, 15 million square kilometers with the diversity of the
most diverse tree species in the world. Indonesia's
tropical forests are rich in palm species (447 species, of which 225
are not in the rest of the world), more than 400 dipterocarp species are
economically very valuable in Southeast Asia, and the spread of
approximately 25,000 species of flowering plants (Albar, 1997). Because
so rich the biodiversity of Indonesia, thus placing Indonesia as one of
the countries in the world that has the greatest amount of
biodiversity. For the island of Java alone, the number of species every 10,000 km2 between 2000 - 3000 species. While Kalimantan and Papua reach more than 5000 species. There are many other Indonesian biodiversity potentially and prospective economically and scientifically. Since
the Convention on Biological Diversity (KKH) among countries in the
world at the 1992 Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro, each country
has the sovereign right to utilize biological resources in accordance
with its own environmental development policy and has the responsibility
to ensure that the activities -the
activities carried out within its jurisdiction shall not cause damage
to the environment of any other country or region beyond the limits of
national jurisdiction. In other words, the state can utilize and manage biodiversity for the welfare of its own people. Basically
KKH contains two things, namely to regulate the International
Environmental Law and obligations that must be done by participating
countries KKH (Kompas, 2000). In
KKH there is also a clause on access to biological resources that is
about the need for protection of indigenous knowledge and the need for
reasonable sharing of benefits in the utilization of living resources
(equitable benefits). If
it is linked with the overall development policy then a development
must contain three main elements of ecological security, livelihood
security and food security (Soetrisno, 2002). In the perspective of biodiversity, the utilization of biological resources should be sustainable. However,
many actions of world bodies such as the WTO (World Trade Organization)
actually affect the utilization of biological resources itself,
especially in developing countries. For example, a policy on Trade Related Intellectual Property Right and other decisions concerning biodiversity. Among
other things are destructive ecological resilience because it
encourages the creation of concentration of biological resources by
eliminating the limitation of ownership to biodiversity. A
more easily understood example, for example to increase exports of
agricultural products, the government will open large estates such as
palm oil, rubber or other exportable crops. The existence of large plantations will also alter aspects of sound agricultural policy. Large plantations will control vast agricultural land planted with only one plant, thus undermining the region's biodiversity.In
the era of globalization there is a tendency for all forms of
management and utilization of biodiversity to be left to international
'systems' and 'procedures' such as free trade, patent recognition and so
on. This
should be noted by the Indonesian government as these 'systems' and
'procedures' are not necessarily able to accommodate the real
contribution provided by communities in managing and protecting
biodiversity in their respective regions.
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