UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja bidang Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (LHK).

 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1314864637637062658.html

Siti Nurbaya Bakar

Banyak sekali informasi bias di ruang publik terkait UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja bidang Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (LHK).

@KementerianLHK berkepentingan mengawal UU Omnibus Law berkaitan dengan tiga UU yaitu UU 32 tahun 2009, UU 41 Tahun 1999 dan UU 18 Tahun 2013. 

Saya mengajak semua pihak untuk mencermati pasal per pasal, bahkan Ayat per Ayat, serta kaitan antar UU, sehingga tujuan utama lahirnya UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja dapat dipahami dan didukung bersama. 

Berikut beberapa poin penting yang perlu saya tegaskan:

1. UU Cipta Kerja penting untuk menyelesaikan warisan masalah berkaitan dengan konflik2 tenurial kawasan hutan.
Jangan ada lagi kriminalisasi masyarakat lokal atau masyarakat adat dan masalah2 kebun di kawasan hutan. 

Rakyat harus dilindungi dan diberikan akses untuk mengelola dan sejahtera dari SDA. Di sinilah peran UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja hadir.

Tak boleh ada lagi petani kecil asal ditangkap. Justru mereka harus dirangkul dan diberi akses mengelola kawasan dalam bentuk Perhutanan Sosial. 

Inilah pertama kalinya Perhutanan Sosial diakui dalam UU.

Izin pengelolaan untuk kelompok rakyat kecil ini sudah berjalan selama beberapa tahun terakhir di masa pemerintahan Presiden Jokowi. 

Sebelum 2015, rakyat cm menguasai 4% saja dari izin pengelolaan hutan. Namun saat ini, Perhutanan sosial mencapai 4,2 juta ha dan lahan hutan untuk masyarakat sudah sekitar 2,6 juta ha, ini menjadi 13-16 % perizinan untuk rakyat kecil (bandingkan dengan sebelumnya yang hanya 4%). 

Komposisi untuk rakyat ini akan terus naik, karena secara ideal nanti dengan target 12,7 juta ha hutan sosial dan Tora, maka akan dicapai izin untuk rakyat kecil hingga 30-35 %. 

Jelas ini mengkoreksi kebijakan di masa kalu yang akibat-akibatnya sekarang kita rasakan dan sedang dibenahi satu persatu. Tantangannya tidak mudah, tapi pemerintah terus berupaya berpihak kepada rakyat, salah satunya dengan hadirnya UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja. 

2. UU Omnibus Law bidang Lingkungan Hidup dan kehutanan, sangat berpihak kepada masyarakat, dimana masyarakat sekitar hutan diikutsertakan dalam kebijakan penataan kawasan hutan, melalui Hutan Sosial dan TORA. 

Simplenya, ini dimaknai bahwa izin diberikan langsung kepada rakyat kecil, bukan lagi korporasi. Izin untuk korporasi membuka hutan primer dan gambut sendiri sudah dihentikan total secara permanen oleh Bapak Presiden. 

Oleh karena itu jelas bahwa dengan UU ini pemerintah berpihak pada rakyat, dan melindungi semua hak rakyat sekitar hutan, termasuk hak masyarakat adat. 

3. Terkait penyelesaian kebun rakyat dan korporasi dalam kawasan hutan serta belum punya izin (keterlanjuran), sangat tidak benar jika dikatakan UU Omnibus Law memberikannya 'cuma-cuma' tanpa ada sanksi apapun. 

Faktanya, korporasi yang 'terlanjur' berada di dalam kawasan, akan dikenakan sanksi denda atas keterlanjuran 'kebijakan masa lalu' dan sanksi denda itu akan menjadi penerimaan negara. Denda paling besar yang memungkinkan, masuk ke kas negara untuk dikembalikan bagi rakyat. 

Jika setelah UU Omnibus Law masih ada yang 'bermain-main' lagi di dalam kawasan, maka akan diterapkan sanksi pidana yang tegas. 

Ketentuan ini menjadi penting, karena kasus2 keterlanjuran yg ditemukan menyangkut hak hidup orang banyak secara turun temurun, dan dibutuhkan kepastian berusaha untuk menjaga stabilitas ekonomi di daerah. Ingat, ada banyak rakyat yang menggantungkan hidup dari sektor hutan. 

Keterlanjuran harus ditertibkan dengan peraturan yang tegas, terang, dan adil bagi semua pihak. UU Omnibus Law mengakomodir semua hal itu! 

4. Berkenaan dengan klaster Penyederhanaan Perizinan Berusaha, saya menyesalkan ada narasi mengatakan UU Cipta Kerja menghilangkan AMDAL. Itu tidak benar!

Melalui UU Omnibus Law Cipta Kerja, mempermudah pemerintah mencabut perizinan berusaha bagi perusak lingkungan. 

Dengan menggabungkan pengurusan izin AMDAL dengan pengurusan perizinan berusaha, jika perusahaan melanggar, maka pemerintah bisa mencabut keduanya sekaligus. 

Jadi tidak benar jika dikatakan UU CK kemunduran terhadap perlindungan lingkungan, karena tidak ada perubahan terhadap dasar aturan Amdal. UU CK hanya menyederhanakan perizinan. 

5. Terkait kekhawatiran beberapa kalangan, bahwa kewajiban kawasan hutan 30 % hilang dalam Omnibus Law, juga sangat tidak tepat. 

Karena catatan ini sudah dicover dalam kewajiban pertimbangan bio-geofisik dan sosilogi masyarakat sebagai pertimbangan u/ penggunaan dan pemanfaatan selain pertimbangan daya dukung daya tampung. Justru dalam UU Omnibus Law, ini bisa lebih ketat daripada hanya soal angka 30 %...! 

Artinya implikasi kewajiban memiliki dan menjaga kawasan hutan, akan lebih ketat dalam aspek sustainability dan penerapan tools untuk itu seperti Kajian Lingkungan Hidup Strategis (KLHS). 

Termasuk tools analisis pengaruh terhadap rantai kehidupan seperti rantai pangan (food chain), rantai energi, siklus hidrologi, rantai carbon dll atau disebut LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) yang sudah diawali oleh KLHK. 

Sementara 5 poin itu dulu. Saya yakin masih banyak hal kritis lainnya yang masih liar berkembang di publik, menandakan demokrasi di Negara kita masih berjalan dengan baik. 

Yang bengkok mari kita luruskan, yang gelap mari kita terangkan. Sehingga kita akan seiya sekata bergerak bersama mewujudkan Indonesia Maju..

Old teeth from a rediscovered cave show humans were in Indonesia more than 63,000 years ago

https://theconversation.com/old-teeth-from-a-rediscovered-cave-show-humans-were-in-indonesia-more-than-63-000-years-ago-82075

Lida Ajer cave - a small but well decorated front entrance. Julien Louys, Author provided

Modern humans were present in Southeast Asia about 20,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence published in Nature today.

An international research team led by Macquarie University applied new archaeological techniques to a longstanding question - were the human teeth discovered more than 120 years ago from Lida Ajer cave really modern human? The techniques allowed us to identify and date ancient human teeth from this Sumatran cave.

These teeth are the key to understanding when humans first travelled through the region, and provide the first evidence of modern humans in rainforests. It was a journey that eventually led humans to Australia.

An early discovery

The Lida Ajer cave, in the Padang Highlands of Sumatra, was originally excavated in the late 1880s by the Dutch scientist Eugene Dubois, who found two human teeth. He was already famous for finding “Java Man”, the first evidence of a missing link between humans and other great apes.

Lida Ajer modern human tooth (left top) with its corresponding scanned image (left bottom) compared to an orangutan tooth (right). Tanya Smith and Rokus Awe Due, Author provided

But the evidence had been ignored when considering the path of human dispersal out of Africa and across to Asia, mostly because ofr doubts over the age and identification of the teeth.

Our study aimed to establish a solid age for the evidence and test whether the teeth did indeed belong to a modern human.

The hardest part was trying to find the cave site again, almost 120 years on from Dubois’s excavation. We only had a sketch of the cave and a rough map from a copy of Dubois’ original field notebook. It took myself, Rokus Awe Due from the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology, and many locals more than a week of constant searching.

Dubois’ field sketches of Lida Ajer cave location copied directly from his field notebook. His rough sketch of the cave location close to Payakumbuh village has annotations added to make the features clearer. Naturalis museum, the Netherlands/Kira Westaway

We stumbled across the cave almost by accident. The minute I saw a large rock column in the entrance, I knew we had found the cave dug by Dubois many years earlier. It was important to find the cave again to sample the sediments in which the fossils were found. That way we could make sure that resulting age was reliable.

Dating the teeth

To establish the importance of this evidence we used advanced modern dating techniques and state-of-the-art imaging methods to confirm the age and identity of the teeth. These techniques would not have been available to Dubois.

The tooth analysis allowed us to look at the internal structure of the teeth, exposing the enamel thickness and the junctions between the enamel and dentine. These junctions are crucial for distinguishing modern human teeth from other ape teeth such as orangutans, and other much older human species.

We applied a range of different dating techniques (luminescence, uranium series and electron spin resonance dating) to improve the accuracy of the fossil age.

As the techniques measure different events, such as the last exposure to sunlight and the timing that cave rock deposits were laid down, any agreement between techniques indicates the resulting age is likely to be solid.

Our results indicate that the human teeth were laid down in the cave between 73,000 and 63,000 years ago, implying that modern humans were living on the landscape at that time.

A rainforest route

The evidence from the fossils in the cave suggests that the modern humans were living in a rainforest environment. This is surprising because the oldest previous evidence of rainforest use by modern humans in Southeast Asia was from 45,000 years ago.

This cave site, shown on the map above, is not within the accepted route of modern humans dispersing through this region, which is considered to be more to the east of Sumatra or closer to Borneo. It was thought that modern humans preferred a coastal route and yet we now have evidence of modern humans inland in western Sumatra.

One of the co-authors on this study is Julien Louys, a palaeontologist currently at Griffith University. He said:

Living in dense rainforests requires complex hunting technology and knowledge that the first humans out of Africa would not have possessed and yet we find evidence of modern humans in rainforests as soon as they arrived in Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the conditions at the coast were not suitable for survival? It’s hard to imagine what the coast of Sumatra would have looked like. The sea level would have been between lower than today so this evidence would now be under water.

But we do know that surviving in a rainforest is difficult as it requires complex planning to find and secure enough food. The Lida Ajer evidence indicates that by at least 60,000 years ago, modern humans were capable of rising to this challenge.

And on to Australia

So what does this mean for the first Australians? If modern humans first arrived in Southeast Asia nearly 20,000 years earlier than previously accepted, then why did they wait until 60,000-50,000 years ago before crossing over to Australia, as was previously thought?

Our study suggests that modern humans could potentially have made the crossing earlier. Recent work from northern Australia confirms this to be true, with evidence that humans have been living in the Madjedbebe cave site as early as 65,000 years ago.

So were the first Australasians much quicker at getting from Africa to Asia, much better at adapting to new environments, and much better at exploring new areas than we previously thought?

This evidence seems to suggests so, and indicates that Southeast Asian caves may have many more surprises left to uncover.

It was growing rainforests, not humans, that killed off Southeast Asia’s giant hyenas and other megafauna

https://theconversation.com/it-was-growing-rainforests-not-humans-that-killed-off-southeast-asias-giant-hyenas-and-other-megafauna-147656

Peter Schouten, Author provided

Thinking of Southeast Asia today may conjure up images of dense tropical rainforests teeming with iconic jungle animals such as orangutans, tigers and monkeys.

Perhaps less well known, but just as important to these ecosystems, are a host of other large-bodied creatures: the goat-like serows and gorals, three species of Asian rhino and the only species of tapir still living in the “Old World”.

The endangered Malayan tapir is the largest of four widely-recognized tapir species and the only one native to Asia. Shutterstock

Together, these creatures comprise Southeast Asia’s megafauna, second only to Africa’s in diversity. These two continental ecosystems are the last vestiges of a world largely lost – one where giants roamed the Earth. But what caused so many megafauna species to go extinct?

Several theories have suggested either humans, climate change, or both drove Southeast Asia’s megafauna to extinction. However, our newest research published today in Nature indicates it was actually the rise and fall of savannah environments that drove this extinction event.

Southeast Asia’s megafauna extinctions

Southeast Asia has lost many large mammal species over the Quaternary period, the past 2.6 million years. They included the world’s largest ever ape, Gigantopithecus, elephant-like creatures known as stegodons and large water buffaloes.

These extinctions also include one of our closest relatives, Homo erectus, and two island offshoots of the human family tree – Homo floresiensis (the “Hobbit”) and Homo luzonensis. One final human species is also recorded in the genes of Southeast Asians today: the Denisovans, who were once likely widespread throughout the region.

According to previous research, the lead antagonist in the megafauna extinction story is humans. Some have suggested the arrival of people to new lands over the past 60,000 years or more – who then overhunted and altered this new habitat – is what led to the loss of giant mammals.

Others researchers have contended changes in climate resulted in the extinction of the megafauna. While others suggest a combination of both human and climate influences.

Toothy insights into past environments

For our research, we examined environmental changes in Southeast Asia over the past 2.6 million years, to determine how they may have impacted extinctions.

We analysed the stable isotopes of the teeth of mammals found in the region today, as well as those from available published fossil records.

Stable isotopes are the non-radioactive forms of many elements. Stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen preserved in mammal teeth record important information on what kinds of plants those animals ate, and how wet their environments were, respectively.

Stable carbon isotopes are particularly helpful in recording whether animals predominantly ate leaves and fruits in shaded forests, or grasses in more open settings. This insight lets us identify shifts in environments over time.

These fossil teeth from extinct Southeast Asian elephants are one example of the various teeth available in the fossil record. Julien Louys, Author provided

The fluctuating presence of forests

During the first 1.5 million years or so of the Pleistocene (the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago), the northern parts of Southeast Asia were largely forest, while the southern parts were woodlands or grasslands.

Later, from about one million years ago, forests retreated everywhere in the region and grasslands dominated. Coincident with these changes, large forest-adapted animals including Gigantopithecus and a giant panda relative disappeared from Southeast Asia’s northern parts.

Gigantopithecus blacki was a large extinct ape that lived during the Pleistocene in what is now Southern China. It’s believed to have gone extinct about 300,000 years ago. Greg Williams/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Later still, around 400,000 years ago, the Southeast Asian Sunda Shelf began to submerge and climate cycles changed. Because of this, forest conditions returned.

At the same time, grassland-adapted creatures that had filled the region, including giant hyenas, stegodons, bovids and Homo erectus began to disappear – and largely went extinct by the end of the Pleistocene. The remainder were driven into the rainforests.

By the last few tens of thousands of years, we see the first evidence of stratified, closed-canopy rainforests in Southeast Asia. These have dominated the region for the past 20,000 years or so.

Rainforest-adapted species should have been advantaged by the return of the rainforests, but one interloper changed that. Homo sapiens appears to be the only species in our family tree that was able to successfully adapt to and exploit rainforest environments.

And although humans lived in Southeast Asian rainforests as early as 73,000 years ago, it was probably only in the last 10,000 years that Homo sapiens began to fundamentally alter these habitats and exploit the mammals within.

A vanishing world

Southeast Asia continues to preserve some of the most critically endangered megafauna on the planet.

Megafauna grassland specialists were the greatest loss as a result of disappearing savannahs 400,000 years ago. Today, rainforest megafauna are also at great risk of extinction.

Luckily for us, our own species’ fortunes changed for the better with the emergence of typical Southeast Asian rainforests. But we’re now the very thing threatening to destroy them forever.