Jakarta (ANTARA News) – Indonesia should consider emulating Brazil in preserving the natural environment, its natural forests in particular, a former Indonesian diplomat said.
“Indonesia should follow Brazil`s policy in preserving the natural environment. Brazil is acting more rapidly than Indonesia in implementing natural environment policies,” former Indonesian Ambassador to Brazil Bali Moniaga said here at a Roundtable Discussion on Improving Bilateral Relationship between Indonesia and Brazil Wednesday.
According to Bali, Brazil was able to stop deforestation in the last two years as its government managed to implement diversification in its economy, especially in areas where deforestation had occurred.
Now the Amazon forests would not be inappropriately touched due Brazil`s policy, Bali said.
Corporations were regarded as the main cause of the deforestation in Brazilian forests as they opened large area in the forest, while those conducted by local people had had a low impact on deforestation, Bali said.
Therefore, corporations were banned to open land in Brazilian forests, Bali said, adding that soybean and meat production which needed large production areas were now banned in Brazil.
Soybean and meat production were regarded as the two major causes of deforestation in Brazil.
“I think, corporations are also the major contributors to deforestation in Indonesia,” Bali said.
With regard to environment preservation, Brazil could act more than Indonesia as the country had way moved on one step further and Indonesia could learn from it.
On the occasion, Bali also mentioned several important sectors from which Indonesia could gain benefit in the bilateral relationship between Indonesia and Brazil.
Those sectors were agriculture and trade, tax policy, capital movement and free visa agreement.
Meanwhile, on the same occasion, Teiseran Foun Cornelis, Head of Centre for Policy Analysis and Development on American and European Regions of the Indonesian Foreign Affair Ministry said Brazil served as a strategic partner for Indonesia.
Indonesia should coordinate and focus on how to gain and harness benefit from Brazil`s economic potentials, as well as its Research and technology, agriculture, farming, forestry and renewable energy sectors.
“To gain benefit, we should identify and familiarize the use and the opportunity in the agreement to potential business enterprises in Indonesia,” Cornelis said.
Brazil is a strategic partner for Indonesia in many sectors, he said, adding that Indonesia and Brazil could partner to solve global issues such as Food, Energy, and Water Security (FEWS), climate change, peacekeeping and also global governance.(*)
KR-AES/A014
