YOGYAKARTA – About 80% of districts in Indonesia are prone to disasters. Although each area has a budget for disaster management, the fund has not been widely used for the community’s attentive activities in the face of disaster risk. "The government should change the strategy, not only disbursing new funds when disasters already happened," said UGM disaster expert, Prof. Dr. Sudibyakto, in a conference of religious and disaster research in the Graduate School on Wednesday (9/3).
According to Sudibyakto, the central government through National Planning and Development Agency (Bappenas) allocated about 9 trillion rupiah for disaster management. However, the absorption of funds was not prepared for the community’s disaster mitigation. "This shows the inconsistency of the mindset’s changes in managing disaster risk," he said.
In Japan, about 5 percent of the total state budget funds are allocated for disasters. Approximately 20-30 percent of the budget is allocated for disaster mitigation and the remaining 5 percent for disaster research.
Disaster mitigation and training activities need to be done in each region because each faces disaster risks. He pointed that in Yogyakarta there are at least seven types of disasters, including volcanoes, cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, urban flooding, and landslides.
Sudibyakto did not agree either if the people who are victims of disaster have to follow the relocation and resettlement. In fact, what needs to be done is strengthening the adaptation and mitigation. "People living in affected areas in fact would be able to adapt to their environment and have the data to be able to endure the risk of disaster," he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sri Nuryani presents her research’s result on the condition of agricultural land affected by the eruption of Mt. Merapi. The lecturer of UGM Faculty of Agriculture conveys that the eruption of Merapi in 2010 had led to the distribution of volcanic ash around the slopes. Therefore, she suggested the use of land for agricultural activities customized to the ability of the land which is currently covered by much of volcanic sand. "We have made land zone map based on the thickness of the sand and submit it to the government through UGM," she said.
Also participating to present the results of their research were Prof. Dr. Ali Ghufron Mukti, Dr. Aris Marfai, Dr. Kwartarini, and Prof. Heddy Shri Ahimsa Putra.