By John JS – May 30th, 2017

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry has implemented transparency in the publication of forestry data which is publicly accessible through its official website. Various information related to environmental and forestry issues can be viewed by category and classification of public information. This is a concrete manifestation of the information transparency principle of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

“The claim of Greenpeace Indonesia that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry refused to provide forestry data is not true. The statement can be misleading information to the public,” said Djati Witjaksono Hadi, the Head of Public Relations Bureau of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, responding to the statement of Greenpeace, on Tuesday (30/5/2017).

He added in a press statement, related to the request of forestry data by Greenpeace Indonesia, that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has submitted the requested maps in JPG format. The data can also be accessed via http://webgis.dephut.go.id/. The distribution data of the licensing concession can also be viewed on the Ministry’s official website.

In every decision making, the Ministry always communicates and negotiates with various stakeholders such as academics and NGOs, so the resulting decisions are fair and do not favor any particular group because they are based on complete and well-informed information.

“So, it is not true that the Ministry is covering information on forestry data and maps because they are already attached to the Ministry’s official website and have been provided in certain format with sufficient scale,” said Djati.

On February 15th, 2017, panel of judges of State Administrative Court Jakarta has decided to grant the appeal of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry on the adjudication verdict of Commissioners of the Central Information Commission on the dispute of information in form of exclusion of map with Shapefile (SHP) format.

Previously, in 2014, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had conducted a consequential test of this Shapefile formatted application, and it was determined that the SHP (Shapefile) format map became excluded information.

From the legal point of view, the map data information of Thematic Geospatial Information (TGI) in SHP format in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry is categorized as geospatial information data as stipulated in the provisions of Article 46, Law No. 4/ 2011 on Geospatial Information (GI).

If the Ministry of Environment and Forestry disseminates TGI in SHP format or that has not been authorized, then the Ministry or anybody who disseminates the information is deemed to have violated the law, that is the provisions of Article 62, and may be subjected to criminal sanctions and penalties in accordance with the provisions of Article 68, Law No. 4/ 2011 on TGI. The Law No. 4/ 2011 is more specific (Lex Specialis) and more recent (Lex Posterior) than Law No. 14/ 2008 on Public Information Transparency.

With the verdict of the State Administrative Court, then the verdict of Commissioners of the Central Information Commission, stating that the geospatial information or map in the SHP format is an open public information, is declared null and void.

For application of forest map information, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry can provide it in JPG or PDF format. The required geospatial information can be accessed via http://geoportal.menlhk.go.id or http://webgis.dephut.go.id.

Source: www.fokuskini.com