What is the important fact about Indonesian development in the last 30 years? The fact is that it has not followed a path that leads to sustainable development. Indonesia's development has been heavily dependent on natural resource extractions. Renewable resources such as water, forests, fisheries and other biological resources have been exploited beyond their ability to regenerate and will continue to diminish in the years ahead. Reliance on non-renewable resources and such activities as mining, minerals and fossil fuels cannot be sustained for ever. Clearly, the whole process of national development has not been sustainable. The question is: why and how has this situation occurred?

Let me go back to the situation 30 years ago. When we Indonesians started to formulate our development policies in 1966–67, there was little mention of environmental issues anywhere in the world; in particular, there was little mention of the links between development and the environment. Accordingly, when we began to draw up a national development plan in 1968, our focus was solely on economic development.

Up till the early 1970s, international development conferences tended to focus on single-track economic development involving infrastructure, agriculture and other primary sectors – so-called ‘normal’ economic development. In 1972, the United Nations held a Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. At the Stockholm conference, something new emerged: the environment. Most developing country delegations to the conference were economists who knew a lot about economics but nothing about the environment.