Community involvement has not been well implemented in environmental impact management in the mining sector. This was expressed by Nurhidayati, WALHI National Executive Director in the PWYP Asia Pacific Regional Meeting (7-8 /8). According to Nurhidayati, three (3) main pillars of environmental governance in Indonesia consisting of rights to information, rights to participation, and compensation OKmechanisms, have not been implemented properly, even though this has been stated in the regulation of Government Regulation number 27/1999 concerning Environmental Impact Analysis (article 33-35).
The results of WALHI’s research shows that the current community participation is still at the non-participatory level, at best only until the stage of representation / tokenism[1]. “Even in the mining sector, there is a violation of the basic rights of the community in terms of determining the mining area,” Nurhidayati added.
Responding to the violation of these basic rights, WALHI then filed a judicial review of the Mining Law to the Constitutional Court, and finally the article in the Mining Law related to the determination of mining areas changed from “must take concern of the community” to ” obliged to protect, respect and fulfil the interests of the community whose territory and land will be included in the mining area and the people who will be affected”. Unfortunately, until now the government has not implemented the Constitutional Court Decision No. 32 / PUU-VIII / 2010 and has not issued a specific regulation (Government Regulation/PP) regarding community participation in the determination of mining areas.
On the other hand, Jalal, founder of A + (Corporate Social Responsibility) CSR Indonesia said that people are still seen as objects in the implementation of CSR in Indonesia, not as involved subjects to determine the direction of development. According to him, companies see that CSR is only limited to money donations, so that CSR considers success if the CSR funds run out at the end of the year. Most of them do not even meet ISO 26000 standards.
“In terms of community development, CSR of the company has not succeeded in promoting the welfare and independence of the community. In many cases, people are increasingly dependent on the resources provided by the company, “explained Jalal.
In its implementation, there are still few people involved since the CSR planning stage. Most are only involved in CSR socialization activities. Another most popular form of engagement is the submission of proposals from the people for community development programs. Unfortunately, this practice is oftentimes dominated by certain groups who are excellent at writing proposals, so CSR is not participatory and inclusive.
Jalal added, there are still very few companies that use the Social Return on Investment approach and the Sustainable Livelihood Approach. Also, there are still a handful of companies that achieved the proper category. Some coal companies have indeed achieved the proper category. But actually, according to Jalal, this is because CO2 is not included as a pollutant category. If CO2 is included as a pollutant category, fewer companies will be categorized in the proper category.
[1] using the Arnstein community participation system