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)