The House of Representatives (DPR) and the Indonesian Government completed the discussion of the Omnibus Law as a Act Law (UU) on Monday (5/10/2020). It should be noted that the Omnibus Law is a law that addresses many issues which are then combined in one aspect. It is not only a matter of workforce welfare, but also environmental sustainability.
The problem is, instead of encouraging economic growth and investment, the government is ignorant of environmental sustainability, which is actually an instrument in attracting investors and stimulating the national economy. Even the stages of the Omnibus Law process which are considered too fast also cannot be separated from the public eye.
On the other sides, as we know, licensing issues have been one of the most highlighted by the government in the discussion of the Omnibus Law. In the oil and gas sector licensing, for example, around 373 permits are required to be completed by the company. I learned this when assisting with public relations tasks a few years ago in one of the government owned downstream oil and gas regulatory agencies.
In this regard, it cannot be denied that licensing is often a problem for global investors in any country. Licensing looks like “terror” in the investment world. Therefore, simplification of licensing through the Omnibus Law has become the government’s quick response to responding to business activities in Indonesia. Overlapping aspects of investment regulations need to be addressed.
However, actually the government also does not need to ignore environmental sustainability in order to attract investment. Instead of providing progress for the economy, government behavior actually destroys economic value, where nature is no longer seen as something sacred, nature is only seen as an object that can be exploited and its nature is not related to one another and another. This kind of view is actually a kind of ambiguity for the government.
The new direction of environmental development has also colored the Omnibus Law such as the revocation of building permits (IMB) and Environmental Impact Analysis (AMDAL) to become more interesting to study. Moreover, environmental issues are one of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals which have encouraged many parties to be resolved immediately, whether in any country.
But is the problem of sustainable development only to reach the line of economic growth, even though it is detrimental to environmental sustainability which must be passed on to future generations ??? Several strategic development concepts implemented by the government must also refer to environmentally sound development, which is based on 3 considerations; economic considerations, ecological considerations and social considerations. There are five basic principles of capitalism which, when examined further, are not in favor of environmental sustainability.
First; full recognition of individual property rights without certain limitations, second; full recognition of the implementation of economic activities in order to improve social and economic status, third; recognition of motivation and inspiration in the economy to achieve maximum profit, fourth; recognition of freedom in competing with other individuals and fifth; recognition of the existence of free market economic laws or market mechanisms.
There is a close relationship between government administration and the environmental quality of a country, this is proven by calculating the environmental sustainability index. This means that a good environmental quality is a reflection of the good quality of the government. Likewise, the opposite happens, the poor environmental quality of a country also reflects the poor quality of government.
In this case it can also be said that the government has failed to carry out its role in preserving the environment as a common interest compared to the interests of a few groups. The Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University once used this index to measure a country’s development. Even though the economy is described as the “king” of a country, it still cannot stand alone. There are linkages and relationships between environmental quality and economic growth; especially to attract global investors.
During the 2014 presidential election campaign, in the document Nawacita I, President Jokowi said, “Indonesia berada pada titik kritis bahaya kemanusiaan yang disebabkan oleh kerusakan lingkungan hidup.” Of course this is based on the problems the President sees in the field. The emergence of various environmental problems, both locally, nationally and globally, is becoming increasingly alarming. Human activities in managing the earth have made the earth lose balance.
Even if we look at the various discourses on the environmental crisis among academics that began to emerge since the 1960s. This is marked by the emergence of several popular works such as Rahel Carson’s The Silent Spring in 1962, Lynn White entitled The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis in Science magazine, March 1967, and Garett Hardins’ Tragedy of Commons in 1968. Human perspective on nature and human greed have contributed most to the destruction of nature where transcendental values are no longer a moral reference for human life. From here humans have lost their essence of life. Humans domination from nature has become the greatest danger to the balance of the cosmos.
In this case, environmental problems cannot be said to be a natural event that occurs in nature, because humans cannot escape from their interrelation with the environment. Knowledge about the world (read: external) is ultimately knowledge about oneself; even nature as a cosmological unit cannot be separated from man in the “end” sense; freedom from all restrictions.
Actually, many people realize that the relationship between humans and nature has been damaged, but not all humans realize that this natural imbalance is caused by the broken relationship between humans and God. What is needed now is to fill the aridity with water, man must be able to weaken the ego.
Humans must see the quality of spiritualism in themselves as an ethical basis for environmental sustainability, because this is considered the most basic awareness embedded in the human mind that will encourage and motivate and even influence human behavior in interacting with nature.
There is almost no balance between modern humans and modern civilization as evidenced by the fact that almost all expressions of modern civilization still dominate nature instead of working together for mutual benefit; if we take care of them, they’ll take care of us. There are things that humans should not forget, that in the past, nature had a sacred aspect, where the cosmos was the highest aspect of the ultimate reality. There is a spiritual message that the cosmos brings to humans, where the cosmos becomes a kind of “vision” which comes from religion itself and becomes a universal value.
