Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

The Indonesian Environmental Association (PLHI) has slammed the North Sumatra administration, saying that it had not properly used the fund the central government had allocated for the Lake Toba regreening program.

It has had a regreening program every year, but it hasn't resulted in anything, PLHI deputy chief Effendi Santonius Napitupulu told The Jakarta Post here last Saturday, after attending a ceremony to declare PLHI as a new environmental organization in the Danau Toba Convention Hall in Medan.

The newly-established organization is chaired by Taufik Kiemas, the husband of President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

Based on information from a survey conducted by the Ministry of Forestry and the Bandung-based Pajajaran University in 1998, from the total 230,000 hectares of land surrounding Lake Toba, some 163,000 hectares were already in a critical condition.

Currently, Effendi said, the condition of the lake was very worrying. Its water surface has dropped by 2.4 meters as a result of being used to generate energy for the hydropower plants of Sigura-gura and Sampuran Harimau.

The lake also experienced an erosion of about 8,475 cubic meters per year.

Given such a condition, Effendi said that the government would need about 15 years to regreen the area and would need to spend about Rp 650 billion to buy about 65 million tree seedlings for the area.

According to him, the erosion was due to the uncontrolled felling of trees in the lake's catchment area.

Deputy chairman of Regional Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedalda), Tigor Hutagalung said factors affecting the condition of the lake were very complex.

He admitted that serious denudation of the land around the lake had ruined the water cycle in the lake. "The water cycle in the area has been damaged so that its water surface has continued to decrease every year," he said.

Tigor also said that water pollution, which was mostly caused by factories and hotels, had passed a tolerable level.

He cited an example of PT Algrindo as one of the factories polluting the lake, saying its water treatment facility does not function well. "We plan to take it to court. We're in the process of collecting the data needed for legal action," he said.

He said that as a follow-up to the regreening campaign, which was launched by President Megawati Soekarnoputri on March 3 in Medan, the province would set up the Lake Toba Ecosystem coordinating board involving the heads of all the five regencies around the lake.

"They will design a policy needed to conserve the lake," he said.

PLHI said that the North Sumatra administration should make a special environmental policy for Lake Toba to prevent pollution in and around the lake.