Dayak people win lawsuit against Salim Group

Dayak people win lawsuit against Salim Group

JAKARTA (JP): The Samihim Dayak people have won their lawsuit
against seven subsidiaries of the widely diversified Salim Group
over large-scale forest fires in South Kalimantan in 1997.

The Environmental Forum (Walhi), who accompanied the Dayak
people in the legal process, said the Kota Baru District Court in
South Kalimantan decided in its verdict that the seven companies
-- PT Laguna Mandiri I, II, III, PT Langgeng Muara Makmur II,
III, PT Paripurna Swakarsa I and PT Swadaya Andika II -- were
guilty of burning farming areas owned by local people.

The court ordered the seven firms to pay Rp 150 million in
compensation to the land owners, Walhi said in a statement made
available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

The environmental organization said the burning was performed
by the seven companies to convert the lands into oil palm
plantations.

"The fires later spread to nearby forests and also engulfed
farming lands belonging to the Dayak people."

Some 106 people of the Samihim Dayak tribe, accompanied by
several lawyers from the environmental forum, filed the lawsuit
at the court last June over the fires which devastated large
forest areas in Kalimantan and Sumatra in 1997.

It was the third time companies have been found guilty of
burning forests belonging to the local people.

Walhi and 12 other NGOs also won two other lawsuits against
forest concession holders over forest fires in North and South
Sumatra last year.

The environmental forum said the seven companies were only a
few of the 176 firms announced by the Ministry of Forestry and
Plantations to have been involved in forest fires in the two
provinces in 1997.

The forum urged the government to investigate the other
companies.

It also called on the Ministry of Forestry and Plantations to
evaluate the granting of licenses to forest concession holders.
(rms)