The South Sulawesi administration has started the development of a new university with environmental studies as its core subject, which is scheduled to start its first academic year in 2014. The university will be the first in Indonesia to specifically focus on the environment.
South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo and Environment Minister Balthazar Kambuaya on Saturday signed an agreement in Makassar to mark the start of the development of the university, which will be located in Tonasa, Balocci district, Pangkajene regency and islands (Pangkep).
The governor said the university was developed primarily due to lack of human resources, in particular officials at both state and private institutions, who only had basic education on environment. As a result, the implementation of environmental management policy was not optimal.
“Environment sustainability can be an avenue for national sustainability,” Syahrul said.
To maintain environmental sustainability, he continued, regulations on their own would not be enough because it also needed people who had adequate knowledge and understanding of environmental issues.
The university will be equipped with biodiversity parks and laboratories, which will support teaching and learning activities in the campus set to be developed on a 10-hectare plot of land.
“The higher education institution will produce quality human resources who are ready to use and manage to resolve environmental problems — in South Sulawesi in particular and eastern Indonesia in general — that currently occur or might happen in the future,” said Syahril.
Minister Balthazar added that the quality of environment-related public services in regions was still relatively low because many officials working in the field did not have an educational background in environmental studies.
“Environmental management needs spectacular moves; moreover, the damage to the environment in Indonesia is already at an alarming level,” he said.
