The right to know: a common concern for citizens and climate
The information age, the digital revolution, information society. These are the times we are living in – an era supposedly characterised by instant access to information. Right to information legislation in over 90 countries means that, in theory, billions of people can get their hands on government data. Yet in many countries the right to know is a practical impossibility.
On the occasion of the tenth International Right to Know Day, we asked our chapters working on climate issues how access to information affects them. In Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, Maldives, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Vietnam, our climate team have been trying to establish how climate money – money which is ultimately about human survival – is spent domestically and who is accountable for it. This is proving a complex task.
Requesting information in the Maldives
Azim Zahir from Transparency Maldives details his experiences struggling against a culture of extreme limits on access to information.
The Ministry of Finance and Treasury is the main climate finance coordination agency in the Maldives. We first wrote to them on 29 December 2011 to obtain a budget breakdown for climate projects planned in 2011. The letter was followed by several reminders via telephone, to no avail. The team again wrote on 8 March 2012, this time asking for budget breakdowns from 2011 and 2012. Ideally such information should be readily available and proactively disclosed.
The ministry responded after nearly three weeks of telephone and email reminders as well as contact with senior staff. Even then it only sent budget breakdowns for 2012 projects. To date, we have not received project figures for 2011.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Finance and Treasury is known for delays in providing information, or plain denial of it. In 2010 a political party took the ministry to court and won the case after the ministry denied access to information on an agreement it had entered into with another party. Unfortunately, not much seems to have improved since then.
Forests, multiple maps and logging licenses in Indonesia
Government information is in custody of the state, but it is owned by the people. By voting and by paying taxes we entrust our governments to make informed decisions. We deserve to know what those decisions are and why they are made, and to play an active role in ensuring that they are the right ones.
Our climate team in Indonesia have been calling on their government to improve citizens’ ability not only to access information but to ensure its accuracy by checking and contributing to it. They recently celebrated a small victory in Tripa, on the island of Sumatra.
Dedi Haryadi from Transparency International Indonesia and Alice Harrison from our international secretariat discuss a recent court case that highlights the wider issue of public access to information and its impact on Indonesia’s forests.
In a recent court ruling the Governor of Aceh was ordered to revoke a license allowing woodland to be cleared for palm oil production in the densely forested peat swamp of Tripa, in Aceh. Cutting these trees releases large volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – a serious matter in a country that is one of the world’s highest greenhouse gas emitters. [Editor's note, 9 Oct 2012: In late September, the current governor complied with the ruling and officially revoked the permit from the company in question, PT Kallista Alam.]
Aceh’s former governor had reportedly ignored calls from the public, including TI Indonesia, to cancel the permit. This sparked international outcry because the concession – which applied to 1,600 hectares of land – included areas that should be protected by a conservation moratorium, and are home to the world's densest population of orangutans.
The story sheds light on two prominent corruption risks in Indonesia. The first is the granting of forestry permits. These are worth a great deal of money, but public information on the licensing process is either missing, incomplete or conflicting. Protected by opacity, governors, mayors or ministers might accept bribes from companies seeking access to forests. This can result in policy capture, where policy-makers are swayed by investor rather than public interests.
The mapping of moratorium areas in Indonesian forests is also vulnerable to corrupt abuse. Until now there have been many different versions of this map. The National Agency for Land Administration had its own, as did the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of Forestry had three or four different versions. With multiple maps to choose from, officials could dodge responsibility for protected zones. This made it very difficult to know whether licenses had been granted legally or through back-door dealing.
The government now claims to have one map, and has said that it welcomes help from members of the public in improving and verifying it. If sincere, this offer could have exciting consequences. Members of the public could act as watchdogs on the ground, ensuring that protected land stays protected and locks carbon in as it should, reducing emissions. Government information would be more legitimate and more accessible, and citizens could play an active role in stamping out the corruption that has plagued the country’s forests.
Transparency International Indonesia’s animated video reveals the darker side of the country’s forestry sector. It shows a businessman bribing a bureaucrat to obtain a commercial license for what should be protected woodland. As a result communities who lived on that land are violently removed and their habitat is destroyed. Corruption is shown to trump human rights, environmental protection and climate action.
Press contact(s):
Chris Sanders
Manager, Media and Public Relations
press@transparency.org
+49 30 3438 20 666
