Professor of the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences (FPIK) IPB University, Prof. Hefni Effendi was also involved in discussing the formation of an Environmental Due Diligence Test Institute (LUK) at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) in Jakarta, 11/4.

Prof Hefni said that the meeting discussed the substance of the framework for forming LUK and the Due Diligence Test Team (TUK) 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, based on Government Regulation No. 22 of 2021, one of the LUK’s tasks is to form a TUK. This team will later replace the duties of the Amdal Assessment Commission (KPA) at the central, provincial and district/city levels.

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

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

Prior to the enactment of the Job Creation Law (Ciptaker Law), it was alleged that the processing of environmental management documents at environmental agencies was experiencing a slowdown. This is due to the increasing number of environmental management documents from various business actors/activities that the government has to assess the feasibility of. KPA is currently coordinated by the Directorate of Environmental Impact Prevention for Businesses and Activities (PDLUK), Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK).

The formation of LUK and TUK and the establishment of a task force (taskgas) to accelerate environmental approvals are KLHK’s way of disentangling past complaints about the performance of the environmental approval process. The proposed LUK and TUK will involve cross-echelon 1 officials at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

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

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

Source: IPB News