Indonesia's New Environmental Governance: Strengthening PPLH Planning with Regulation 26/2025
Indonesia bolstered environmental governance with Government Regulation No. 26 of 2025 on PPLH Planning (RPPLH), effective June 5, 2025. This framework integrates ecological considerations into development, responding to environmental crises. It establishes a six-stage implementation approach, mandating environmental inventory and ecoregion designation, and emphasizes continuous evaluation for sustainable resource utilization and robust policymaking.
Indonesia significantly bolstered its environmental governance with Government Regulation No. 26 of 2025 on PPLH Planning (RPPLH), effective June 5, 2025. This critical framework, built on Law No. 32 of 2009, aims to integrate ecological considerations deeply into development planning. It responds to escalating environmental crises like pollution and deforestation, ensuring decisions prioritize ecosystem sustainability and future generations' rights over mere economic growth.
The RPPLH's necessity is underscored by ongoing environmental problems, including problematic food estate projects, mining degradation, and agrarian conflicts. As highlighted by WALHI, this regulation signifies a governmental commitment to address these issues seriously. It serves as a comprehensive reference for sustainable resource utilization, moving beyond administrative formalities for substantive environmental protection.
The RPPLH framework's core is a structured six-stage implementation approach: Planning, Resource Utilization, Pollution Control, Maintenance, Supervision, and Law Enforcement. The foundational "Planning" stage includes environmental inventory, ecoregion designation, and RPPLH formulation. This systematic process ensures decisions are rooted in accurate data and ecological understanding, fostering accountable and ecologically appropriate policy-making.
A crucial element is the Environmental Inventory stage, involving meticulous collection of spatial and non-spatial environmental data. This comprehensive data forms the bedrock for subsequent stages like ecoregion designation and assessing environmental carrying capacities. Accurate, up-to-date information is vital for effective ecoregion delineation, RPPLH formulation, and spatial planning, emphasizing its immediate and thorough completion.
The regulation further mandates ecoregion designation and environmental supporting/carrying capacity assessment. Ecoregions are delineated by natural resources, ecosystems, and culture. Capacity evaluation, using methods like ecological footprint, determines resource demand versus supply. This annual evaluation is crucial for updating environmental status and informing adaptive management to prevent environmental overshoot and ensure sustainable development.
