Thursday, 15 July 2021 on 4:15pm
SEAMEO BIOTROP, in collaboration with FAO Indonesia and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia (KLHK), held an online National Inception Workshop with the theme “Strengthening Capacities for Prevention, Control and Management of Invasive Alien Species (SMIAS) in Indonesia (Strengthening Capacity for Prevention, Control, and and Management of Invasive Foreign Species in Indonesia)”, on 12 and 13 July 2021. The National Inception Workshop activity is a series of events in developing project documents submitted by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to The Global Environment Facility (GEF) in 2020.
The National Inception Workshop is conducted to provide integrated information to all stakeholders who will be involved and related to the process of preparing and developing the Project Documents. These stakeholders consist of representatives from various government agencies, academia, the private sector, NGOs, and local community groups.
Welcome remarks were delivered by Ir Laksmi Dhewanthi, GEF Operational Focal Point; drh Indra Exploitasia, Director of Conservation and Biodiversity- KLHK; and Dr Ageng Setiawan Herianto, FAO Representation Indonesia. The workshop was opened by the Director of SEAMEO BIOTROP, Dr Zulhamsyah Imran.
GEF Operational Focal Point, Ir Laksmi Dhewanthi, MA underlined 4 important things to keep in mind for the project implementation related to GEF:
- GEF (Global Environmental Facilities), committed at the global level. Control and prevention of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) is an integral part of policies and implementation of biodiversity conservation policies. This project is an implementation of the convention of biological biodiversity. At the global level, there are set targets that need to be achieved.
- partnership and involvement of stakeholders who need to sit together to reach mutual understanding and agreement among stakeholders.
- good governance, transparency, and accountability, will function as the guards to ensure that we reach the goals, in line with the expected results in preparing the SMIAS document, prepared with supporting data and assumptions.
- sustainability, in which the SMIAS project only runs for a few years with limited funds.
The workshop provided a lot of information about the status, strategy, and updates on IAS management in Indonesia from various aspects. IAS management which always follows field conditions requires strategic and integrated approaches with developments at the national level.
Cooperation with international institutions requires clarity on how various efforts must be made and thought out together based on the challenges faced in the two project locations, namely in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park and Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park. This project is also related to the formation, development, and implementation of a grand strategy, which involves raising awareness, increasing the capacity of all stakeholders related to IAS management, starting from the policy makers to the level of technical implementers in National Parks and other environments.
Assistant FAO Representative Indonesia Dr Ageng Setiawan Herianto expressed his highest appreciation to the executing agency, namely the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, represented by the Directorate General of Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystem, the more-than-200 active and enthusiast participants, to SEAMEO BIOTROP who, together with FAO Indonesia, organized this event, and also to Dr Arne Witt from CABI, as the Project Team Leader. (sb/iw)
