Forest fires: Will sanctions be effective?<\/p>\n
By Suwiryo Ismail<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The government's decision to revoke hundreds of
\nlicenses belonging to 29 forestry and plantation companies last
\nmonth might not be effective.<\/p>\n
The first reason is because the timber utilization licenses,
\nor IPK, which total 151 of the licenses being revoked are only
\none of many other licenses.<\/p>\n
Besides licenses from the Ministry of Forestry, an estate
\ncompany is also required to own licenses issued by the regional
\nadministration, the Ministry of Agriculture and other agencies.<\/p>\n
This means that the revocation of an IPK cannot be considered
\na final punitive action. A company whose IPK has been revoked
\nstill possesses other licenses. This explains why many of the
\ncompanies sanctioned are still in control of their land, despite
\nthe punishment.<\/p>\n
The authority to grant and revoke an estate business license
\nrests with the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of Forestry,
\nwhich is authorized to issue timber estate licenses and forest
\nconcession rights, has no authority to revoke an estate business
\nlicense.<\/p>\n
Another irony is that some companies appear to enjoy creating
\npanic among their own laborers by threatening that they will lose
\ntheir jobs following the government's revocation of their
\nlicense.<\/p>\n
Also, press reports on these businesses' licenses may help
\ndivert the public from pinning down investigation into the real
\ncause of the forest fires.<\/p>\n
The reports will also shift the \"field of conflict\" from a
\nconflict of interest between the community and forest
\nconcessionaires, estate companies and the bureaucracy on the one
\nhand, to one between society concerned with environmental safety
\nand laborers.<\/p>\n
If the government is serious in imposing a penalty, it must be
\ndone with transparency and involve representatives of the
\nprosecutor's office and the police as well as the appropriate
\nlegal instruments to net the perpetrators.<\/p>\n
The fact that before revoking the licenses, the Ministry of
\nForestry allowed the companies they had accused 15 days to give
\ntheir counter arguments to prove that they were not guilty of
\nforest burning, indicates that the process of imposing the
\nsanction was less than transparent.<\/p>\n
Why, for example, did not the ministry state that forest
\nburning was a criminal act when imposing the sanction so that the
\nlegal process would be transparent to the public?<\/p>\n
If this case had been handled on the basis of law No. 23\/1997
\non environmental management, the treatment of the case would have
\nbeen more transparent because the public would have been entitled
\nto monitor the legal process.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the revocation of the licenses would also be more
\nappropriate because it would be based on the country's
\nlegislation on environmental management, while the government
\nwould have been entitled to claim for environmental compensation
\nexpenses from the companies engaged in forest and land
\ndestruction.<\/p>\n
Obviously, there are three basic problems related to this
\nincident. Firstly, inadequate handling of this incident was
\nlinked to the fact that most of the companies perpetrating forest
\nburning were owned by big businessmen who have established very
\nclose relationships with the powers that be and enjoy excessive
\nstate protection.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the fact that the forest fires had become extensive
\ncorrelated with the tendency on the part of the government to
\nrelax its control over companies granted forest concessions or
\nthe rights to manage land and natural resources.<\/p>\n
This relaxed control might result from the state's excessive
\nprotection of companies granted licenses to manage natural
\nresources, particularly those in the forestry and estate sectors.<\/p>\n
The government also has no adequate instruments or personnel
\nto supervise the activities of forest concessions and plantation
\ncompanies. Therefore, if there are irregularities, for example,
\nland clearing through burning practices, the government is
\nincapable of handling these irregularities immediately.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, the public have no adequate rights to supervise the
\nmanagement of natural resources. The public's right to exercise
\nsupervision is reduced because, on the one hand, their access to
\nforests and natural resources is systematically restricted and,
\non the other, protection is extended to groups enjoying the
\nstate's mandate to manage natural resources.<\/p>\n
The right of the public to supervise is effectively undermined
\nby a concept based on a handful of the state's legal instruments
\nincluding its \"right of control over natural resources\" as
\nstipulated in Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution, Law No. 5\/1960
\non agrarian principles, Law No. 11\/1967 on forestry, Law No.
\n5\/1967 on mining and Law No. 23\/1997 on environmental management.<\/p>\n
Using this concept, the state will render the concept of
\ncommunal property rights (locally known as ulayat), still
\nprevailing in some regions, ineffective and even turn it into
\n\"the state communal property right\".<\/p>\n
In practice, these two concepts are used as the state's
\n\"unlimited\" source of legitimacy to allocate forests and natural
\nresources to economic forces supporting the existence of the
\npolitical power.<\/p>\n
The writer is head of the division of environmental affairs at
\nthe Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation.<\/p>",
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