Prof Hefni Effendi Involved in Discussing an Establishment of the Environmental Feasibility Test Institute at KLHK

Professor of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences (FPIK) IPB University, Prof Hefni Effendi, was involved in discussing the establishment of an environmental feasibility test institute (LUK) at the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) in Jakarta, 11/4.

Prof Hefni stated that the substance of the framework for the establishment of LUK and the Environmental Feasibility Test Team (TUK) was discussed at the meeting, which had been outlined in the Minister of Environment and Forestry Regulation No. 18 of 2021 Concerning Competency Certification for Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal), Amdal Service Provider Institutions, and Environmental Feasibility Test.

He cited that based on Government Regulation No. 22 of 2021, one of the LUK’s tasks is to form a team (TUK). This team will later replace the duties of the Amdal Assessment Commission (KPA) at the central level, as well as at the provincial and district/city levels.

“The main things that surfaced in this discussion include the establishment of LUK and TUK, which will be wrapped up in a Minister of KLHK Decree as a legal basis. Furthermore, standard operating procedures or standard work procedures are required for each business process from LUK and TUK, which are responsible for carrying out environmental approval processes forvarious business sectors and activities,” he added.

Prof Hefni revealed that, apart from being a regulatory obligation, the idea of establishing LUK and TUK was actually also motivated by the government’s desire to accelerate the quality environmental approval process for business activities.

Prior to the enactment of the Job Creation Law (UU Ciptaker), it was alleged that the arrangement of environmental management documents at environmental institutions was experiencing a deceleration. This is due to the increasing number of environmental management documents from various business actors/activities whose feasibility needs to be assessed by the government.

KPA is currently coordinated by the Directorate of Environmental Impact Prevention for Businesses and Activities (PDLUK) from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK).

The establishment of LUK and TUK and the formation of a task force (satgas) to accelerate environmental approvals are KLHK solutions to disentangle past complaints about the performance of the environmental approval process. The proposed LUK and TUK will involve cross-echelon 1 officials at the KLHK.

According to Ir Ary Soedijanto, MSE as the Head of LHK Instrument Standardization Agency (BSILHK), the recent quantity of environmental approval arrangements and the increasing complexity of activity plans lead to the necessity of involving many directorates within the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and a wider variety of expertise.

"So the existence of this LUK accommodates and further synergizes the tasks that have actually been carried out by several other directorates in other directorates general at the KLHK," he explained.

Apart from Prof Hefni, PDLUK staff and the Pokja 3 working group were also present in this discussion. Pokja 3 is the monitoring and evaluation team for accelerating environmental approvals, consisting of Dr Eko Sugiarto dan Dr Wahyu Yun Santoso (Universitas Gadjah Mada), and Dr Dwi Sasongko (Universitas Diponegoro). (*/Rz) (IAAS/SNI)