Eight oil palm companies face legal action

MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): North Sumatra's Plantation Agency will recommend that North Sumatra Governor Rizal Nurdin take legal action against eight oil palm plantation firms in the province for their alleged involvement in slash-and-burn practices, an official said on Monday.

The agency's spokesman, M.E. Girsang, said the sanction for the problematic companies would include possible closure or stiff penalties against the firms.

"As a result of the slash-and-burn practices, there are now 360 hot spots in North Sumatra, most of those are in Labuhan Batu, which has 187 hot spots," Girsang told The Jakarta Post.

Girsang identified the companies as PT Daya Labuhan Indah, PT Cisadane Sawit Raya, PT Abdi Budi Mulia, state-owned PTPN IV, PT Wonorejo and PT Indosepadan Jaya.

All but PT Wonorejo are located in Labuhan Batu regency. The company operates in South Tapanuli. They all denied the allegations.

Two other companies, PT Torganda and PT First Mujur Plantation, refused to fulfill the agency's summon for questioning.

"We do not know how fire suddenly burned 75 hectares of our plantation," said PT Abdi Mulia spokesman Suryadi.

"Our company never burns anything," PT Torganda spokesman Henry replied when asked about the fire.

Meanwhile, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) are developing strategies to tackle forest fires in cooperation with the Indonesian government, a joint statement from the research bodies said on Monday.

The joint statement of the two organizations based in Bogor, West Java, said fire fighting was only a temporary solution for the complex forest fire situation.

"Instead, CIFOR and ICRAF have put forward a multistage plan that could be set in motion immediately, backed up by medium to long-term intervention," the statement said.

Along with fire-fighting efforts, teams of experts will investigate the current fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra by mapping the fires with satellite photography and conducting field interviews to provide information on the location of the fires.

"However, any action will have to take into account the fundamental socioeconomic forces driving the fires and offer practical alternatives to burning," it said.

The research bodies also asked the government to review the draining of peat lands, which increased the flammability of the peat and to develop alternative methods in land preparation and use that would reduce both fire and smoke, it said.

Most of the other fires are set by farmers preparing land for crops, but fire is also used as a weapon in land tenure conflicts between plantation companies and local communities.

"Burning is the cheapest method to clear land, with large- scale operations like palm oil and logging concerns starting about two-thirds of the fires," the statement said.

Citing their researchers' findings, the two organizations concluded that nearly four million hectares of agricultural land, over three million hectares of lowland forest and 1.5 million hectares of peat and swamp forest were burnt in 1997/1998.

However, 60 percent of the damaging particulate matter and carbon dioxide in the haze came from peat fires.

"Controlling burning in peat areas is the highest priority to control the haze," said the statement.

The fires have destroyed enormous amounts of biodiversity, especially in lowland forests. The government is advised to work with large-scale operations to develop and implement appropriate timber-harvesting practices and effective forest fire management. (42/03)